Players smear cake in Dinesh Karthik's birthday celebrations

Birthday boy Dinesh Karthik was subject to ‘cake treatment’ as his fellow teammates smeared cake all over his face. Team India is currently in England for the ongoing Champions Trophy, where they celebrated Karthik’s birthday while preparing to take on arch-rivals Pakistan in their opening game.

Manish Pandey’s injury brought Karthik back into the Indian squad as a replacement. He was rewarded for his consistent performances in the recently concluded IPL for the Gujarat Lions. The reason behind his selection was also perhaps because Karthik was in fine form during the previous edition of the Champions Trophy, which India eventually won.

Born in Chennai on June 1, 1985, Dinesh Karthik debuted for India against England at Lord’s in September 2004. Shortly after, he was selected in India’s Test squad that played against Australia. However, Karthik’s international career never really took off. Once MS Dhoni came into the Indian team, it was almost impossible for DK to return to the side.

However, he managed to make an impact in the previous edition of the Champions Trophy when he scored two back-to-back centuries in the warm-up games. Although he couldn’t carry his momentum into the tournament, Karthik had made a statement.

DK’s brilliant 94 in warm-up

Having been selected for the 2017 edition of the Champions Trophy, Karthik scored a duck in the 1st warm-up game. Nevertheless, he managed to make a crafty 94 against Bangladesh in India’s second warm-up fixture. Karthik’s outing became even better when he snapped four catches behind the stumps as India dismantled the Bangladeshi batting line-up.

Celebrating his 32nd birthday, Karthik’s face was smeared with cake and players even began to pelt cake at each other. The BCCI posted a short clip showing the players’ celebrations on Twitter, saying, “From cake-smearing to cake-pelting, nobody was spared at @DineshKarthik’s birthday celebration. Take a look. :)”

From cake-smearing to cake-pelting, nobody was spared at @DineshKarthik's birthday celebration. Take a look.?https://t.co/T0hZJn02GW

— BCCI (@BCCI) June 2, 2017

From all of us at CricTracker, we wish Dinesh Karthik a very happy birthday!