A few months ago, it was a well-established fact that Rishabh Pant was India’s first choice wicketkeeper-batsman in all three formats of the game, but his inconsistency with the bat in T20I cricket for a long period of time and Dinesh Karthik’s revival as a T20I batsman in the previous IPL has now changed things a little bit and it has now become a selection conundrum for India, as far as the selection of wicketkeeper is concerned for the T20 World Cup 2022.
In the first match of Asia Cup 2022, when India had all their first-choice batsmen available and they could go with only one out of Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik, they decided to go with Karthik. India won that game and it would be safe to say if Ravindra Jadeja had not gotten injured after the group round and India didn’t need a middle-order left-hander, Karthik would have continued to be playing ahead of Pant.
Now that India has to pick the squad for the T20 World Cup 2022, it’s likely that they will pick both Karthik and Pant because one can’t go into a World Cup with only one wicketkeeper. There will have to be a reserve option, but Karthik might be India’s first-choice wicketkeeper in the playing XI in the T20 World Cup, as Pant couldn’t do anything significant with the bat in the Asia Cup.
Rishabh Pant might miss out on a T20 World Cup berth if selectors consider KL Rahul as a backup wicketkeeping option
In another scenario, if the selectors consider KL Rahul as a reserve wicketkeeping option, Rishabh Pant might be in danger of not even picked in the T20 World Cup squad, because he doesn’t have the numbers to justify his selection in India’s T20I team in the recent times.
We want Dinesh Karthik as permanent wicket keeper batsman for India till T20 World cup 2022.@BCCI @DineshKarthik
— Amit kumar (@AmitsPOV) September 7, 2022
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As far as finishers are concerned, while Karthik will be one of the specialist finishers for India if he plays as a wicketkeeper-batsman, another finisher in India’s playing XI will be Hardik Pandya and if needed, Harshal Patel, while batting at no. 8, can also give finishing touches to the innings towards the latter stages.
