Dinesh Karthik, the veteran Indian wicketkeeper-batsman, has been in incredible form, and the Wankhede crowd in Mumbai saw another glimpse of it on Sunday during the 2022 IPL match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad. Karthik smashed 30 runs off just eight balls in the innings to help RCB finish on 192 for three. Virat Kohli’s gesture towards Karthik after the fiery knock, on the other hand, went viral on social media.
After Glenn Maxwell was dismissed in the second ball of the 18th over, Karthik walked in. SRH’s tight bowling had reduced RCB to 159 for three at that point. Karthik was on strike for eight of the remaining ten balls, smashing four sixes and a boundary on his way to an unbeaten 30 that helped RCB reach 192 for three.
Kohli bowed down to hail Karthik’s slog-over hitting against Hyderabad as he made his way back to the dressing room after the blazing cameo.
Faf du Plessis, the RCB captain, later revealed that he was considering retiring early in the innings in order to bring in Karthik and maximise the profits.
“Everyone wants to get Karthik in and bat for as long as possible if he keeps hitting sixes like that. But he’s so straightforward. To be honest with you, I was trying to get out because I was so tired of trying to get DK in, and we were even thinking about me retiring “In his post-match presentation, du Plessis said.
“DK is in fantastic form right now. It was, however, a difficult wicket. It wasn’t one of those wickets where you could just walk in – I don’t think it was obvious with DK, but the other guys struggled the first two balls. Then, fortunately for us, I believe DK dropped a catch in that one over, and he took them apart.”
