India's latest T20 cricket squad is a story of comebacks

Image: Instagram/kkriders

A super hit Bollywood film has been made on the story of India’s most iconic wicket-keeper batsman and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The meteoric rise of Dhoni is stuff straight out of any Bollywood blockbuster’s script. However, the rise and fall and now a stunning comeback by Dinesh Karthik who has been Dhoni’s contemporary is nothing short of inspirational either even if no one attempts to make a Bollywood movie on his journey.

Popularly known as DK, whose peak of career was coincided with the mighty Dhoni’s omnipresence for the last one and half decade, has seemingly defied all logic and has made a comeback to India’s T20 squad for a 5 match T20 series against South Africa next month. Who would have thought that the man who played a match-winning compact inning in India’s first ever T20 International match way back in 2006 would still be playing the format at the age of nearly 37? "When I went in, I just wanted to play out all the overs, as that’s what my captain wanted me to do,” Karthik had said after winning the Man of the Match award as his role was that of the finisher (batting at Number 4 he scored unbeaten 31 off 28 balls).

Since then, Karthik went on to play contrasting roles for the Indian team as well as for half a dozen IPL teams in the next one and half decades. However, the most unexpected of comebacks for the Chennai player has come on the back of his stunning IPL season. The metamorphosis of Karthik as a finisher is staggering as no one in this IPL has scored over 250 runs with a strike rate of nearly 200 (191.33)! Karthik was ingloriously shunted out from India’s white-ball setup after the semi-final exit in the 2019 ODI World Cup. Since then, he has tried his hand successfully in commentary (for the UK’s Sky Sports) and the role of a cricket expert for a popular cricket website, and yet nothing could match his desire to prove himself at the international level for India, one more time.

Very few may recall that Karthik made his Test and ODI debut even before MSD came on the scene. The lack of consistency in red ball format and subsequently and parallelly the indomitable presence of Dhoni disrupted his Test ambition.

Making his Test debut in 2004, DK went on to play 22 more matches in the next six years intermittently and after that, there was a full stop in 2010. And yet he made a comeback after Dhoni’s retirement in 2018. Even if he managed to play just 3 matches as Wriddhiman Saha, Parthiv Patel and young Rishabh Pant didn’t allow him to cement his place. However, he was always a better player in the white ball format and his record in ODI does suggest that besides Dhoni, no wicketkeeper-batsman has been as successful as Karthik.

The difference in the ODI average of Pant (32.50) and Karthik (30.20) is not huge and the fact that despite the presence of Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, and even KL Rahul, DK has forced his way one more time, it is a remarkable story. Just imagine a playing XI with Pant, Karthik, and Hardik Pandya in the middle overs!

If Karthik’s comeback is a fascinating story and then another wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson’s exclusion is a baffling one. The curious case of Sanju Samson’s selection or rather elimination has been the most controversial decision by Chetan Sharma and his colleagues. In the IPL 2021, Samson, despite the additional responsibility of captaincy for Rajasthan Royals, he still scored an impressive 484-run that season. Maybe Ishan Kishan’s performance (he is among the top 10 leading run-getters of the IPL 2022) may have played its part (Samson is at number 18).

However, the way Rohit Sharma had publicly spoken about the RR captain’s candidature for the upcoming T20 World cup in Australia because of his range of strokes and suitability for the bouncy Australian pitches, Samson must be confused with the selector’s latest verdict.

Samson’s current IPL form may have gone against him; however, the same logic was not applied to the talented Rahul Tripathi’s exploits in the IPL 2022. The Pune batsman is among the only two batsmen who have made it to the top 10 leading scorers' list despite having no experience in international cricket. Tripathi’s team-mate Abhishek Sharma may have scored 13 runs more than his 423, but none could match his average (37.55) and strike rate (158.23), which is better than the likes of Ishan Kishan who opens the innings and enjoys the advantage of the powerplay.

And yet the selectors must be applauded for blooding in the young pacers Arshdeep Singh and Umran Malik, the two contrasting and yet very successful bowlers of the IPL 2022. While Malik’s astounding speed has excited everyone and this is evidenced in his unprecedented 14 matches streak of delivering the fastest ball in the match! The fact that he is among the leading wicket-takers of the tournament has simply forced the selectors to include him in the Indian team.

While Punjab’s Arshdeep may not have the pace and the oomph factor of Malik, but his versatility, cricketing intelligence, and left-arm angle have a message for all the youngsters -- pace alone is not the only criteria to make it big.

Apart from that, even if it may not be as shocking for fans to see that there is no place for Shikhar Dhawan in the T20 squad despite another prolific IPL must have been disappointing for the veteran opener.

In similar circumstances (when the top players were playing the Test series in England) last year, Dhawan was asked to lead in Sri Lanka in the white ball format, and this time he has been completely overlooked despite the fact that there is no Kohli or Rohit in the top order.