The veteran Indian wicket-keeper batter, Dinesh Karthik said he is looking forward to the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 auction. He played for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) till the 2021 edition, but he reckons that it will be great for him to play for Chennai Super Kings, the 4-time champions from his hometown. He has already played for as many as 6 franchises in the past but hasn’t represented MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings so far in the 14-year-long history of the IPL.
Dinesh Karthik is currently working hard in Mumbai under the guidance of friend and mentor Abhishek Nayar, focusing on sharpening his finishing skills in the shortest format of the game, as per the reports in the Press Trust of India. With the IPL 2022 auction is set to be held in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13, Karthik shed light on what it means for him to play the tournament. Karthik has featured in 213 IPL matches and scored 4046 runs, including 19 fifties.
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As per the quotes in PTI, Dinesh Karthik said, “It’s very hard for me to answer this question because it will be a very cliched answer. I’ll try and do everything that I can, not only to do well for the franchisee I play for but for myself also. Look, it’s great if I can play for CSK. I’m from Chennai.”
He further added, “But at the end of the day, what’s important for me is whichever team that I get to play in, it will be an absolute honor because as I said, all this practice that I’ve been doing these days is to try and do well in a tournament like the IPL.”
With India continuing to try out players for the middle-order in ODIs and T20Is, Dinesh Karthik senses an opportunity. Citing the examples of Shikhar Dhawan, who is 36, and Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik and the recently-retired Mohammad Hafeez, who both have already turned 40, Karthik said age is not a criterion for selection anymore.
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Talking about the same, Dinesh Karthik said, “Age is definitely not the thing that a lot of normal people look at it (for India comeback). Shikhar Dhawan was the highest run-getter (in ODIs in South Africa) and we are the same age. People tend to figure out, understand their body, the amount of cricket they can play, and all of those reasons. Experience is a very important factor in multi-nation tournaments.”
