IPL 2022: 5 players who emerged as finishers this season

2. Dinesh Karthik

Dinesh Karthik’s epic resurgence has been the talk of the town. Some are calling him ‘ the comeback king’ as he has been in the scheme of things since India’s first T20 match in 2006 and has made yet another comeback into the Indian T20 squad for the upcoming series against South Africa. A lot of credit goes to Dinesh Karthik for RCB’s performance this season. As the likes of Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell didn’t perform as they were expected to, Dinesh Karthik rose to the occasion and that too on several outings.

In this IPL, he scored a total of 330 runs in 16 innings with a remarkable average of 55.00 and a stunning strike rate of 183.33. He also remained not out on 10 occasions during this season. Whenever RCB was in trouble, he delivered his best. His performance in the past couple of seasons for KKR was not up to the potential he possesses but this time around he had a point to prove and he did prove it with flying colours.

His highest score this season was 66* and that was his only fifty-plus score, but the impactful and quickfire 30s and 40s were the ones that made him one of the best finishers of this season. His unbeaten knock of 37 runs in 23 balls during the eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants was very crucial in setting up a massive target alongside Rajat Patidar. Another knock of 30 runs in 8 balls in one of the league matches against Sunrisers Hyderabad catapulted their score to 192/3 which had given RCB the much-needed edge in that game. All in all, Dinesh Karthik has made a strong statement with his bat and has emerged as a match-winning finisher.