'He went to Madurai and many other places to play local cricket' - Sanjay Bangar's revelation on Dinesh Karthik

Former India cricketer Sanjay Bangar spoke of how Dinesh Karthik went to the extent of playing local cricket in Madurai in order to fine-tune his game and set it in line for a long-cherished return to playing for the country. 

The head coach of Karthik's IPL franchise the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) confirmed that the veteran wicketkeeper-batter wanted to leave no stone unturned in his effort to make it back into the Indian side, after he had last represented the country in the 2019 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand in Manchester. 

Bangar said Karthik was willing to put in the hard yards at the domestic level and turned up for Tamil Nadu when he was not on IPL duties. And when both options weren't available, Dinesh Karthik played local club cricket in the city of Madurai. 

Sanjay Bangar unveils Dinesh Karthik's brief tryst with local cricket in Madurai 

Bangar spoke glowingly about the "hunger" and the desire in Karthik, who has worked extensively hard over the past few years to achieve an India comeback. The RCB coach witnessed closely how much sweat the 37-year-old batter willingly put into fulfilling his dream and kept the trust going in his abilities. 

"He has the hunger," Bangar told Star Sports. "When he wasn't playing in the IPL, he played a lot in domestic T20 cricket. When even those matches were over, he went to Madurai and many other places to play local cricket."

"He wanted to practice in open wickets, as much as he could. And he is now reaping the rewards of his hard work. He has set a standard by showing such grit, determination and brilliance to make a return to the Indian team," he added. 

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Asserting his dominance on Friday (June 18) against the South Africans, Karthik smashed his way to an enterprising 27-ball 55 to help India achieve series parity heading into the decider on Sunday. Intimidating against pace as he has been for a while, Bangar, though, took heart out of Karthik's fantastic assault on the Proteas spinners, especially Keshav Maharaj. 

"Many a time, statistics can be misleading. I remember the game against RR where Ashwin and Chahal were bowling; the stats showed that Karthik wasn't strong against spin, but he proved it wrong," Bangar said, reminiscing of the recent IPL. 

"The main difference between the previous season and this one was that he came with a positive approach. He wanted to take on the spinners. You would've noticed, he attempted shots like sweep, reverse-sweep, slog-sweep to perfection against spin bowlers," he added.