cricket

Updated: Feb 23, 2019 11:45 IST

With Virat Kohli back, India are unlikely to play three wicket-keepers in the first T20 International against Australia in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. Since Rishabh Pant is the flavour of the season and MS Dhoni is, well, MS Dhoni, it could mean Dinesh Karthik being crowded out which wasn’t the case in New Zealand.

Omitted from the one-dayers that follow, Karthik has only T20 games - including those he will play in IPL 2019 for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) - to make a case for himself before the World Cup squad is finalised. For a man who first wore an India cap on September 5, 2004, is good enough to be considered adept at finishing games in white ball cricket, notched up strike rates of over 250 in IPL 2018, Karthik, 33, hasn’t been part of the 50-over showpiece ever.

A large part of that is because of Dhoni changing the dynamics of death-over batting and wicket-keeping in the shorter and the shortest formats. “You need a big shot and he delivers,” Karthik had said of Dhoni after they added 57 in 5.4 overs to win the Adelaide one-dayer against Australia earlier this year.

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It was here that India first got high on MSD. Of the nine short format internationals completed here (eight one-dayers and one T20), Dhoni hasn’t played only one since making 148 (123 balls, 4x15, 6x4) against Pakistan in 2005. From that typhoon of a ton to 20 off 25 balls against West Indies in 2018, a lot has changed with Dhoni like it has with this city.

Even as Dhoni blossomed, Karthik persevered: 26 Tests, 91 One-day Internationals and 30 T20 Internationals are proof of that. “With the limited opportunities he has got for India, he has proven himself in the finishers’ role. In the last three-and-a-half years, he has matured from someone who used to score a lot of 80, 90, 100s but not finish games to finishing games. He is no longer the person who wilts under pressure,” said former international Abhishek Nayar who has worked with Karthik.

But when it looked like Karthik’s batting would help him cement the second keepers’ slot, Pant arrived with swagger, style and substance. A superstar in the making, West Indies T20 skipper Carlos Brathwaite had said of Pant. And like when Wriddhiman Saha’s better keeping skills helped him seal a Test spot when Dhoni retired, Karthik finds himself in danger of being nudged out again.