'How do you see that?' - Sunil Gavaskar's indirect dig at Gautam Gambhir over Dinesh Karthik's T20 WC chances

Former India batter Gautam Gambhir said that there was no point in giving Dinesh Karthik a place in the India squad that will travel to Australia for the upcoming T20 World Cup if he is not picked in the playing XI. Following the former opener’s comments, Indian great Sunil Gavaskar said that Karthik is the “player India wants”.

Gavaskar wondered how one could see that he is not going to play, adding that players have to be picked based on their form and not reputation. He explained that as Karthik bats at No. 6 or 7, he cannot be expected to score a fifty regularly.

“I know people are talking about how can you include him in the team when he’s not going to play. How do you see he’s not going to be able to play? He could be the guy you want. You look at the form and not reputations, names and then you pick the guy,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports.

Don’t look at the man’s age, look at the performances: Gavaskar

Karthik is currently on a hot streak with the bat, and put up a Player of the Match performance against South Africa in the fourth T20I of the ongoing series in Rajkot on June 17 (Friday).

He was also one of the top performers in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022, scoring 330 runs at an average of 55 and a strike rate of 183.33, which prompted a comeback to the India team for the 37-year-old. Karthik has started all four games for India in the five-match T20I series against South Africa and has been in contention to make the squad for the T20 World Cup.

“He (Karthik) doesn’t get too many opportunities, bats at number six and seven. You can’t expect him to get 50 regularly. He’ll get you a good 40 in 20 deliveries and that’s what he has been doing consistently. He did the exactly the same thing again and that is the reason why he’s very much in contention for a place in the World Cup squad. The way he got runs today, India were down and out. Don’t look at the man’s age, look at the performances,” said Gavaskar.

India levelled the five-match series 2-2, thanks to Karthik’s knock of 55 runs off 27 balls, which was well supported by Hardik Pandya’s knock of 46 off 31. India, after setting up a target of 170, won the match by 82 runs.