‘Definitely at No. 6 or 7’: Sunil Gavaskar picks India’s finisher for T20 World Cup, South Africa and England series
Legendary India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has batted for Dinesh Karthik to make a comeback to the Indian side even before the T20 World Cup.
Gavaskar said Karthik is in line to make a T20I comeback in the home series against South Africa and the tour to England. India are set to face South Africa for a five-match T20I series at home after the IPL. Team India will then travel to England for three ODIs and as many T20Is.
“The way the IPL is going for him at the moment, I do believe he should be very much in the running for the India spot in the October tournament, maybe even earlier for South Africa, for England, I do believe he should be earlier in the team,” Gavaskar told Sports Today.
Karthik has been in superb form in IPL 2022, playing the finisher’s role for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Karthik is RCB’s second highest run-scorer this season with 274 runs in 12 matches. But what has been most impressive about his batting, is his strike rate. Karthik has scored those runs at a staggering strike rate of 200.
Gavaskar said he would consider Karthik for the No. 6 or 7 slot, where he has been batting mostly in this IPL. “I would definitely look at him as a batter who can come in at No. 6 or No. 7 like he is doing for RCB and take the game away from the opposition,” Gavaskar added.
The former India captain also narrated how Karthik was desperate to make a comeback to the Indian side even when he was doing commentary assignments.
“I spent a lot of time with him last year. We spent about 10-12 days in quarantine in Belgrade, Serbia where we practically sort of spending 12 to 14 hours a day, eating lunch, dinner, and breakfast. Spending time with him, I got to see how keen he was to come back to the Indian team. He was keen to come back to the team that played in the UAE last year. That didn’t quite happen. It was perhaps a little too close. The IPL that year didn’t go all that well for him,” Gavaskar said.