Dinesh Karthik played an instrumental role in cruising Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to a turnaround four-wicket victory against table-toppers Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their IPL match on Tuesday (April 5). Karthik was adjudged Player of the Match for his sensational innings as after the match he said that he is making a conscious effort to send a message that he is not done yet and there is lot of cricket left in him.
While chasing a competitive target of 170, RCB suffered an early batting collapse as they lost four of their wickets in a space of 11 balls which left them in all sort of bother at 62/4. Then Karthik (44 not out off 23) and Ahmed (45 off 26) snatched the game away from RR with a 67-run partnership off just 33 balls.
"I think I made a conscious effort this year to do justice to myself because I felt that last year, I could have done better. The way I trained was much better this time around. Hats off to the person who trained with me. I'm making a conscious effort to tell myself that I'm not done yet," Karthik said in the post-match presentation.
Even Jos Buttler's splendid knock of 70 off 47 in which he hammered half a dozen couldn't save Rajasthan from blushes. It was RCB's second win in three games while it was the first loss of the season for the Royals after consecutive victories.
"When I went in, we needed 12 runs per over and had to keep going. I train for these situations. To stay calm and know whom you can takedown. I've tried to play as much white-ball cricket as possible, and prepare as many scenarios as possible. A lot of people have spent time with me on this journey, leading upto the tournament and it's the work that goes unnoticed mostly. I think T20 cricket, it's mostly premeditating but you also need to be clear about where to target," Karthik further added.
The wily Yuzvendra Chahal (2/15), playing against a team he played for seven seasons, was largely responsible for the RCB collapse. He forced an error from Faf du Plessis (29), who mistimed a leg break to be caught at long-on, before cleaning up left-hander David Willey (0) with a classical leg-break.
Chahal also effected the run out of Virat Kohli (5) after a brilliant take and throw from Royals skipper Sanju Samson. Trent Boult then getting rid of Sherfane Rutherford made it 87 for five, leaving RCB in a lot of trouble.
That was when Karthik, who has shown stellar form this season, came into the middle and brought back RCB into the contest with some sensational strokes including a reverse sweep off Ravichandran Ashwin whose fourth over went for 21 runs.
Karthik did the bulk of the damage batting alongside Ahmed as they brought up their 50-run stand off just 21 balls.
