Former Indian cricketer Ashish Nehra has been full of praises for Dinesh Karthik, who is currently enjoying his best spell as a cricketer in Indian cricket team.
Karthik has been playing some splendid knocks coming lower down the order and had also provided stability to the middle order in ODIs. His impressive adaptability after all these years has left both fans and experts in awe in the recent months.
The 32-year old had also starred for India in the recently concluded Nidahas trophy in which he guided India to a long memorable victory. Having come on to bat needing 34 runs in 2 overs, Karthik played a missile innings in which he scored an unbeaten 29 runs from just eight balls and clinched the victory with a six on the last ball.
Ashish Nehra, who had seen Karthik since his debut for the Indian team, has expressed his happiness for his pal after his recent outings in the blue jersey. Karthik made his debut in Indian team as early as 2004 but could not seal place with the emergence of MS Dhoni, a year later.
“Karthik has been around for 13 years, but unfortunately, he didn’t manage to play that many games for India. There was competition, but M.S. Dhoni has been so good. But Karthik has the ability. He has all the shots in his bag. He plays spin very well. Skill-wise, he was always up there. But for me, even if he hadn’t scored 29 off 8, he wouldn’t have changed,” he said.
However, Nehra was reluctant to be drawn into comparisons between MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik. He backed MS Dhoni as the former skipper had played the role of a finisher for nearly a decade unlike Karthik, who is still emerging into the role.
“I don’t like people comparing with Dhoni suddenly after finishing one game. You can’t compare him to somebody who has been doing it for the last 10 years,” Nehra was quoted as saying by Sportstar.
