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A day after India's T20 World Cup 2024 triumph, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) announced Dinesh Karthik as their new batting coach and mentor on July 1, nine months ahead of next Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
“Welcome our keeper in every sense, Dinesh Karthik back into RCB in an all new avatar. DK will be the Batting coach and Mentor of RCB Men’s team!” RCB wrote on X.
“You can take the man out of cricket but not cricket out of the man! 🙌 Shower him with all the love, 12th Man Army!”
The 39-year-old bid goodbye to all forms of cricket after RCB were beaten by Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the IPL 2024 eliminator clash.
What Karthik said about RCB fans after playing his last game for the franchise
"I think RCB basically means the fans. There is nothing else that I can think of when I think RCB. Yes, Virat Kohli is a very, very big name and he is a large part of RCB. But, I think the fans are bigger than that," Karthik said in a video posted by RCB.
"The amount of love that I received... I sometimes think that I was picked for the 2022 World Cup because of RCB's fans. There was such a huge wave of people saying 'DK has to be there'. I will never forget it. To make a comeback at the age of 37 when I hadn't played international cricket for long time before that, I really feel RCB and RCB fans have played a very important part in the small phase where I played for my country," he added.
Karthik's IPL numbers
Karthik is RCB's second-highest Indian run-scorer in the IPL. He scored 937 runs from 53 innings at an average of 24.65 including three half-centuries. His strike rate of 162.95 stands out of the lot. Overall, Karthik is the second-highest run scorer in IPL history as wicketkeeper-batter. The Tamil Nadu-born batter has scored 4,842 runs from 234 innings at an average of 26.31 including 22 half-centuries.
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