‘I’d be surprised if he’s not in there’: Ricky Ponting wants Dinesh Karthik in India’s T20 World Cup squad

Former Australia cricketer Ricky Ponting heaped praises on Dinesh Karthik for an excellent Indian Premier League 2022 and expected him to play an important role for India during the upcoming T20 World Cup if picked.

Karthik was one of the key members of Royal Challengers Bangalore during the last edition of the cash-rich league with 330 runs at a strike rate of more than 183 as the franchise reached the play-off stages. The 37-year-old wicketkeeper’s batting heroics was credited with a spot in the Team India squad for the ongoing home series against South Africa.

“I would have him, and I’d have him in at that five or six role,” Ponting said in the ICC Review. “The way that he finished games for RCB this year, he took his game to another level.”

Ponting felt that Karthik’s consistency, along with skipper Faf du Plessis’s, was the reason behind RCB’s run to the play-offs, where they lost in the Qualifier 2 to Rajasthan Royal after beating Lucknow Super Giants in the Eliminator.

“When you look at the IPL, you want your better players to maybe be able to win two or three, maybe four games through the season. If you can get that out of them, it’s probably going to be a really good return. But Dinesh probably had a bigger impact on a lot of the games than most of the other RCB players did this year.

“Virat (Kohli) having the year he’s had, Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) started the tournament really well … but DK was the one. And Faf too I guess, who kept the RCB bandwagon rolling. I’d be surprised if he’s not in there (India) line-up somewhere,” Ponting said.

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