The veteran India end-overs maverick talked about his successful transition into a powerhitter in IPL and T20Is for India.
Dinesh Karthik explained how his transition into an end-overs aggressor with the bat came about. The veteran India wicketkeeper-batter opened up on his transformation from an inconsistent middle-order player to one of the most dependable powerhitters down the order.
In an interview with Cricbuzz, Karthik said the shift was a “conscious effort” on his part seeing the way the T20 as a format was developing. Back in 2018, as captain of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), he decided to play “slightly lower” down the batting unit to enable entry points that invariably left him needing to hit big from the start.
The 37-year-old identified that it is the only spot vacant for him both the KKR and Indian batting line-ups and best means for him to stand apart from the rest. From that moment on, Dinesh Karthik has had a death-overs strike-rate of 194.45 with an average of 36.85 in the IPL.
At the IPL 2022 for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), he averaged 55.00 while striking at 183.33 through the season, where he also announced his T20 World Cup aspirations and went on to make a successful comeback for India. In T20Is, over 31 innings, Karthik has an end-phase SR of 185.86 with an average of 28.50.
“It was only around 2018-19 that I made a conscious effort to bat slightly lower down the order for KKR, and the team combination kind of dictated that up to a point,” Karthik said. “Because we had the openers, [Chris] Lynn and [Sunil] Narine, then you had [Robin] Uthappa and Nitish Rana. Obviously the top four were comfortable with where they were batting, then it had to be me and [Andre] Russell at 5 and 6 depending on the match situation.”
“And it got to a point where, you know, at the end of 8-9 overs, I used to go irrespective and after 14 overs it used to be Russell, that’s how it was timed. And then organically it started to change depending on form, situation and all of that.”
“Obviously Robin went out of the team and then the dynamics of the team became different. And then you know, we bought in [Eoin] Morgan so we evolved. But I could see I was batting largely at 5-6 and I was hardly batting at even 4 in my time at KKR. And I realized, with me playing finisher, the pressure of the game was different.”
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Further on his magnificent transition, Dinesh Karthik stressed it is the demands of the format and recognising how he could channelise his strengths the best that led to this shift in the IPL and for India in T20Is.
Karthik said he has practising specifically for the job at hand, doing a lot of range-hitting sessions and scenario practising that helps him counter the opposition bowlers at the death, with his wealth of experience also coming in handy.
“In 2018, when I came back into the Indian team in the T20 setup, I did that role for India with a decent amount of success. I was very happy doing it. I wanted to do the same in the IPL and for India and I went about deciding to practice very specifically, knowing that I can fulfil this role, whichever team I play for.”
“Even when I went back to my state team I batted a lot at 4 and 5 and allowed the boys to obviously go and play up top, which is what a lot of the batsmen enjoy doing.”
“And then you know, I had the experience to absorb the pressure and then dictate how the match needed to go depending on where it was. I made a conscious effort to do that,” he added.
