In the present lockdown period, while the cricketers are taking a break from the game, the Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik has recently talked about his experience during the heart-breaking semi-final defeat in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
In-form India met against New Zealand in the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 at Manchester (9-10th July 2019). That game was stretched to the reserve-day due to the rain-interruption in the late of the first innings of that match.
After restricting the Blackcaps to 239/8 (50 overs) in the morning of the reserve-day, the Indian top-order batsmen hugely struggled in the early period of the second innings. All the top three Indian batsmen were sent back to the pavilion before completing the fourth over (5/3 – KL Rahul 1, Rohit Sharma 1 and Virat Kohli 1), and it forced Dinesh Karthik to come up to the batting order at no.5. Karthik stayed at the crease till 10th over of that innings before losing his wicket when his team was reeling at 24/4.
Karthik was surprised coming to bat at the no.5 position because he was selected for the no.7 batting position, behind the experienced wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni.
In a recent chat with Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz, Karthik said, “It came as a bit of a surprise to me (walking in to bat at five) because they had made it very clear that I would be batting at number seven.”
There were many games when a lot of the middle order didn’t even get to bat: Dinesh Karthik
However, the senior Indian cricketer understands the reason for that surprising decision. Karthik knows that the team never expected to face that kind of embarrassing situation due to having the most in-form batsmen in the top-order batting.
Karthik added, “But they didn’t expect something like that to happen because we were going pretty strong in the tournament. Rohit was batting so well, you always have Virat, Shikhar had done well till he left. The middle-order typically didn’t get enough opportunities to bat, and that is one of the harder ones you know. When the middle order doesn’t get to bat and suddenly are pushed into a big game like this and thrust into such a situation.
“There were many games when a lot of the middle order didn’t even get to bat. It was a hard thing because someone like Dhoni likes to play an x number of balls in a tournament especially leading up to the semi-final. It could be hard in that tournament. You could have the experience, yes, a player like Dhoni has played 300 games, but a World Cup semi-final is a World Cup semi-final. It has its beauty and the pressure around it. And everybody deep down somewhere felt that this could happen in a game, and it so happened in the semi-final.”
I went and did the job that was asked of me for the team: Dinesh Karthik
It was only third game for Karthik in that tournament. The right-handed batsman came to bat at the no.7 position during the League Stage game against Bangladesh at Birmingham, where he didn’t get much time to settle down and scored only eight runs off nine balls in the death overs before losing his wicket. His next game in that tournament was against Sri Lanka (League Stage) at Leeds where his batting assistance didn’t require. His next game was the semi-final of that tournament which was also his last game for India till the date.
In that semi-final match, while Karthik got a great opportunity to perform for his nation after getting promotion in the batting order, the right-handed batsman tried his best in that hard condition. According to that crisis moment, Karthik had the role in stopping the fall of wickets.
Karthik claimed, “Throughout the tournament it was pretty clear that I was going to bat below Dhoni at number seven. I had done that really well in the past. In Australia we’d finished games, in New Zealand we’d finished games. I had not batted at number five for a couple of years or more. Here I got the opportunity, I went and did the job that was asked of me for the team, which was to arrest wickets.”
I just stopped the wickets falling till Boult’s spell was over: Dinesh Karthik
In that crucial game, Karthik scored just six runs off 25 balls before James Neesham’s brilliant catch at the backward point ended his fight.
Karthik said, “I went in in the third over and I don’t know when I got out, and it doesn’t matter, but I just stopped the wickets falling till Boult’s spell was over. He was the main wrecker-in-chief and unluckily when it was time for me to move on, I got out to a brilliant catch by James Neesham.”
Among the top five Indian batsmen, only Rishabh Pant (32) managed to reach the double-digit mark of that innings. After Pant and Hardik Pandya were dismissed after each scoring 32 runs, MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja incredibly carried India’s innings. While Jadeja scored 77 runs, Dhoni (50) was unluckily run out just after completing his half-century. India were finally bundled out for 221 runs as New Zealand advanced to the final after winning that match by 18 runs.