"Play eight balls and make a match out of it" - Former RCB star opens up on reinventing himself towards end of career

Former India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik has opened up about reinventing himself as a finisher towards the latter stages of his career. Karthik had announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on June 1, 2024, but later returned to play in overseas franchise leagues, including the SA20.

He is currently featuring for the Sharjah Warriorz in the International League T20 and is also frequently seen in broadcasting roles, as well as part of the support staff in franchise cricket.

During his appearance on the 'Beard Before Wicket' YouTube podcast on Sunday, December 21, Karthik discussed his journey as a T20 finisher, noting that it began in 2016 when he met former India batter and current Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) head coach Abhishek Nayar. The 40-year-old explained that he did not have the physique of power hitters like Andre Russell or Kieron Pollard and had to be innovative with his approach. He said:

“So my biggest change came around in 2016 when I met Abhishek Nayar. That's when I started training differently. We almost adopted a new role that no one heard of because it's a role that not many would want to do because the chances of failing exponentially increases, which is to be a finisher. Basically, you'll play eight balls and you try to make a match out of it. Who wants to do that? All batters want to bat more deliveries so they can get set and score volumes of runs. We went the other way around, said let's do something that not many people want to carve a niche out of.” “I'm no Pollard or Russell, you know, with big body where I can mishit and go for a six. I needed to be clever and innovative with that. So, we started training for a few years, and it wasn't a niche that people accepted at that point because probably my failures are more than my successes,” he added.

Karthik featured in 179 matches for India across formats, scoring 3,463 runs at an average of 27.92, including 17 fifties and one century.

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“That is all they expected out of me” - Dinesh Karthik recalls being picked by RCB in the IPL 2022 auction

In the same interaction, Dinesh Karthik revealed that he discovered the best version of himself in the finisher role in 2022, the year RCB bought him for ₹5.50 crore. During the 2022 IPL, Karthik scored 330 runs in 16 innings for RCB, at an impressive average of 55.00 and a strike rate of 183.33, including one fifty.

His standout performance played a key role in earning him a spot in India’s T20 World Cup squad later that year. Karthik said:

“But by the time I reached 2022, I had found the best version of myself playing that role, and and RCB picked me in that auction. And the beauty about RCB, credit to them, was they picked me purely for that role. That is all they expected out of me. Go in the last five years, do your thing, and I was all set for it. Went in there, the clarity was there, and I went in and did the best that I could. So I did it that well that I ended up playing for the country again in the T20 World Cup in Australia. So that's why they almost bit of a redemption arc for me, that one.”

Overall, in his IPL career, Karthik played 257 matches, scoring 4,842 runs at an average of 26.31 with a strike rate of 135.36, including 22 fifties.

Edited by Dev Sharma