Dinesh Karthik has expressed his wish to represent his home-based franchise Chennai Super Kings in the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League.
Karthik has represented as many as six franchises in his IPL career. Released by Kolkata Knight Riders at the end of the previous edition, he has previously featured for Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Punjab Kings (then Kings XI Punjab), Royal Challengers Bangalore, and also the now-defunct Gujarat Lions.
Despite being a journeyman, however, Karthik has never got the chance to represent his home city in the Premier League, with CSK well-served in the presence of captain and wicketkeeper-batter MS Dhoni. The defending champions have rarely needed to spread the net wide and focus on backup wicketkeeping options.
But with this anticipated to be the legendary skipper’s last season, there might be a strong consideration given to the potential back-ups. Karthik, 36, presents that case well, considering his ability and wealth of experience – something that CSK as a franchise have always valued.
Looking ahead to the forthcoming mega auction where ten teams, including the two new sides based in Lucknow and Ahmedabad, will be vying for the large pool of released players, Karthik said it would be “great” if CSK goes after him and gets him in their squad.
“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,”
he was quoted as saying by India Today.
Ultimately, though, Karthik’s focus is on doing well on the field for whichever franchise gets him at the auction and making a strong push towards his often declared wish to make a comeback to India’s T20I side ahead of the T20 World Cup later in the year.
“Look, it’s great if I can play for CSK. I’m from Chennai. 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,”
he added.
Karthik was released by KKR despite having previously led the side and being their first-choice wicketkeeper and end-overs aggressor for a long time. The last couple of seasons, on neutral surfaces, didn’t quite go according to the plan for the right-hander, but he displayed his best when the normalcy was in playback in 2019.
Karthik had a strike-rate of 146.24 while averaging 31.62. He has scored over 4,000 runs in his IPL career and could be a valuable addition to the CSK line-up.
The Super Kings seem set to be led by their great captain Dhoni for one last time. Speculations were rife on Dhoni’s future by the end of the IPL 2021 in UAE last year. But CSK retained him for a sum of INR 12 crores.
Over the past few seasons, CSK have shown their independence as a batting unit from Dhoni, whose powerhitting skills against quality bowling have been on the wane. But he still stands as their strongest pillar because of his undoubted captaincy credentials.
The franchise also retained allrounders Ravindra Jadeja (16 crores) and Moeen Ali (8 crores), apart from their promising young opener Ruturaj Gaikwad (6 crores).
