Colombo: What he did on Sunday night against Bangladesh in the Nidahas T20 tri-series final finally appears to be sinking in for Dinesh Karthik.
India were very much out of the contest in Colombo when they needed 34 runs off the last two overs as most of the established batsmen were back in the dugout. However, Karthik had other ideas and smashed an 8-ball 29* to do what appeared impossible at one time.
First he took 22 runs off the Rubel Hossain over with shots of 6,4,6,0,2,4 to set it up nicely, and then hit Soumya Sarkar for a six over the covers off the last ball of the match – with India needing five runs to win – to help the team stay unbeaten against Bangladesh in eight T20s.
Twitter went wild with celebrations and many personages, including Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, went into rhapsodies of praise. And it didn’t take Karthik long to share his happiness on the micro-blogging site too.
For his heroics, the 32-year-old was rightly chosen Man of the Match. The rewards, however, could be much bigger for him. Prior to the tournament, many were of the opinion that Rishabh Pant should be given chances ahead of Karthik as the latter was heading into the twilight of his career besides having done little in a 14-year sporadic spell in international cricket.
