'Hard to understand'- Sunil Gavaskar on Dinesh Karthik's snub against Pakistan
Dinesh Karthik (PC: Twitter)
Veteran Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar expressed his astonishment with the snub of wicket keeper Dinesh Karthik from Sunday's Super-4 encounter against Pakistan in Dubai.
Speaking to India Today, the legendary opener-turned commentator said that he found it 'hard to understand' why Karthik was dropped from the playing XI.
Gavaskar said that he found it baffling why the team management would drop Karthik for such a crucial game given the fact that he is the designated finisher of the team.
Here's what Sunil Gavaskar said India's defeat to Pakistan
''Also dropping Dinesh Karthik was hard to understand. Here, you have already identified him as a finisher and in this big match, you don’t have him on your team. So that was a bit of a surprise."
Dinesh Karthik played ahead of Rishabh Pant in the group encounter but, the untimely injury to Ravindra Jadeja and the paucity of a left-hander in the top-6 forced them to slot in Pant in the starting XI.
Pant, however, dished out yet another underwhelming performance as he fell for a 12-ball 14 while trying to nail the reverse-sweep off wrist-spinner Shadab Khan.
Pant's dismissal came at a wrong time as India were already reeling with back-to-back dismissals of KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav.
It made matters even worse as all-rounder Hardik Pandya fell for a 2-ball duck, leaving Virat Kohli (60 off 44) and Deepak Hooda (16 off 14) to do all the heavy lifting.
India eventually posted 181/7 in 20 overs but brilliant middle-overs batting from Pakistan, shoddy fielding and bowling from the Indians ensured that Babar Azam's team won a high-scoring thriller in the last over.
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