Veteran Royal Challengers Bangalore wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik (1*) found himself in the middle of a trolling campaign on social media platform Twitter after he erred in a crunch situation at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium tonight.
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Karthik, who has scored only 10 runs across three innings at a strike rate of 83.33 this season, was found wanting behind the stumps when all he had to do was collect a ball and stop Lucknow Super Giants‘ tail-enders Avesh Khan (0* & 0/53) and Ravi Bishnoi (3* & 0/39) from sneaking a bye.
Not that Karthik not erring on the last ball would’ve prevented Royal Challengers from losing their second consecutive league match of the season, it would’ve surely bought them more time by taking the contest to the first Indian Premier League 2023 super over.
Bangalore pacer Harshal Patel (2/48), who had leaked as many as 35 runs in his first two overs, bowled quite well to defend five runs in the last over. With Lucknow needing a run off the last ball of the match, a composed Patel beat Khan but Karthik fumbling allowed the visiting batters to secure a tense 1-wicket victory.
Yet another instance of RCB failing to defend an innings total in excess of 200 runs was expected for them to allure severe criticism. While the same happened as it was expected to, Karthik’s fault reminded fans of legendary Mahendra Singh Dhoni collecting the ball in one go to run out Bangladesh‘s Mustafizur Rahman in ICC World Twenty20 2016 at the same venue under similar circumstances.
Dinesh Karthik Memes
Karthik, who has remained an understudy for Dhoni for most part of his international career in spite of playing his first match for India three months before him, was hoping for an IPL homecoming under Dhoni before IPL 2022 auction.
