Ashish Nehra showers praises on Karthik; refrains from comparing him with Dhoni

India’s wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik rediscovered his stature and recognition following the spectacular knock to successfully finish the game and hand his side one of the most memorable victories in the final match of the recently concluded Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka. With the Indian team requiring 34 runs off the last 2 overs against Bangladesh to win the title, Karthik joined a struggling Vijay Shankar who was not at all timing the ball well. The experienced batsman smacked 29 runs off 8 balls to win the final match for his team pretty much single-handedly.

Former Indian cricketer Ashish Nehra still feels that Karthik is still a great batsman and would have remained the same in the veteran’s books, even without his explosive heroic knock against Bangladesh in the final T20I game.

He has always been a great player of spin

During a recent conversation, Nehra mentioned Dinesh Karthik who made his debut a long way back 13 years ago, still has the ability to perform with the greatest of batsmen in the national team. The former Indian fast bowler also reckoned that earlier there was a big competition between MS Dhoni and Karthik, but the former has been so good that nobody could have taken his place.

“Karthik has been around for 13 years, but unfortunately, he didn’t manage to play that many games for India. There was competition, but M.S. Dhoni has been so good. But Karthik has the ability. He has all the shots in his bag. He plays spin very well. Skill-wise, he was always up there. But for me, even if he hadn’t scored 29 off 8, he wouldn’t have changed,” he said.

I don’t like people comparing with Dhoni suddenly after finishing one game. You can’t compare him to somebody who has been doing it for the last 10 years,” Nehra was quoted as saying by Sportstar.

I enjoy running

The current Indian cricket team has evolved a new culture for maintaining the fitness and health of the players in the team. All the players whether they are fast bowlers or batsmen have also nicely supported this new culture to built a new system of learning. Nehra also talked about his views on the current fitness regimes followed in the Indian team and how much he enjoys them.

“When it comes to running, I am good as I still run. If you give me one month’s time and ask me to do Yo-Yo, I will do at least 70 percent of it. I can finish fourth or fifth even now in a team of 15. In 2009, when Gary (Kirsten) was the coach of India, he used to run much more than me. These days, he is cycling for 100kms every alternate day. It’s his passion. It is all about your liking. I enjoy doing cardio, so when I have biryani, I feel good (laughs),” the former Indian fast bowler concluded.

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