Adelaide: His place in the team under the scanner, Dinesh Karthik did a lot of keeping drills during an hour and a half’s indoor session at the Adelaide Oval, but didn’t look fully fit.
Coach Rahul Dravid said that a call on his participation in the T20 World Cup match against Bangladesh will be taken on Wednesday, the day of the game.
Karthik has scored 1 and 6 in the two games he has batted, and has struggled with back spasms since trying to collect a Hardik Pandya bouncer in the match against South Africa at Perth.
Rishabh Pant didn’t train on the day and normally, players, who have their places assured in the XI, don’t come for training on eve of the match.
“Yeah, he’s (Karthik) pulled up pretty well today. It was unfortunate he had that spasm when he jumped to collect a bouncer. I think when he landed badly, he landed in a way that I think he just hurt his back a little bit.
“But with treatment and with the day — this morning he’s pulled up pretty well,” Dravid told reporters before start of the training session.
“So we’ll be assessing it. We’ll see how it goes, and we’ll see how he pulls up tomorrow morning after a good practice session today.
“We’ll put him through his paces and ensure that we’ve given him a good workout and then see how he pulls up tomorrow morning before making a final decision,” the head coach added.
Since Dravid has taken over as the head coach, whenever he has remained non-committal on a player’s availability, it has meant that the player is likely to be benched.
While doing keeping drills, Karthik looked sore and, at times, couldn’t gather the throwdowns.
Karthik, who in all likelihood is playing his last ICC tournament for India, has been given the role of a finisher, and unlike sub-continental tracks, he has struggled against pace and bounce on the Australian wickets.
“Again, tough for someone like DK to assess how he’s gone. Didn’t get to play many games. He got one ball against Pakistan at that back end and didn’t bat against Netherlands. Thought he was building up a pretty good partnership with Surya at that stage,” Dravid said in defence of the Tamil Nadu keeper.
He said that Karthik helping Suryakumar build a partnership should be taken as a positive although his contribution was a mere 6 out of those 52 runs.
“We needed that little bit of partnership just to get stabilizers, and just was set up for him, but again, that’s the nature of this game.
“You play that high-risk shot and you can get out on that shot, which is why people need to be supported and backed as much as we possibly can in these formats because you hardly — sometimes people, especially in positions like DK’s at 5 and 6, you don’t get enough balls,” Dravid was trying to put things in perspective.
“You don’t get enough thing, and then when you have to go in, you have to really deliver high-risk shots without having much time to settle in.”
Players playing in critical positions need the backing of the team, said the coach.
“Yeah, our belief has always been to back and support players in those positions so that come the critical time, hopefully they’ll be in the right frame of mind to be able to play those crunch shots for us.”
Kohli spends quality time with Rahul
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During the World Cup, Virat Kohli has hardly missed an optional session. Despite steady downpour, he was there along with the under-fire KL Rahul, Karthik and Ravichandran Ashwin for the indoor session.
While he batted briefly, Kohli was seen keenly watching Rahul’s batting in the nets and then spent considerable time dissecting his technique with coach Dravid.
From a distance, it seemed like Kohli was explaining the Karnataka man his front-foot press, and perhaps, trying to meet the ball early, which has been his undoing so far in the showpiece.
Kohli was seen telling Rahul that his trigger movement was taking his front foot towards off stump and his body weight being transferred forward. That could make him a candidate for played-on, caught behind, or leg before dismissal.
Kohli advised Rahul to maintain still body position, and rather than moving across, just open the front foot, pointing towards the bowler. That would help him to come to the front foot or go back without premeditated commitment.
PTI