Karma chameleon

Living by himself in Chennai has helped Karthik grow as a person © Cricinfo Magazine

In the four years since his first-class debut, he has gone from the alliterative KKD Karthik to the shortened KD Karthik, to the exotic Dinesh Kaarthick, to the straightforward Dinesh Karthik. His interactions with journalists are incomplete without a clarification about his name, a topic so confusing that it's tempting to ask for his passport to resolve all doubt.

Much else has changed in the same period. KKD Karthik was the cocooned teenager whose mother accompanied him to Ranji Trophy games ("My parents expected a lot initially."). KD Karthik was the wicketkeeper-batsman who broke into the Indian side, showed glimpses of match-winning ability, and also a propensity to throw it all away in a moment of recklessness ("I was often extra positive when I should have controlled my shot-making ability.").

Dinesh Kaarthick, a numerologist's delight, was sent back to the grind of domestic cricket; despite his outlandish surname, he was overshadowed by a lasso-twirling maverick, Mahendra Dhoni. But nobody has been able to keep down good old Dinesh Karthik, who regained his spot thanks to his improved batting ability, electric fielding, and according to observers in the team, "model work ethic".

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Tamil Nadu have just escaped relegation from the Super League in their final league match. Karthik has hardly contributed, but the clamour for autographs and pictures, largely by schoolkids who have arrived at Chennai's Guru Nanak College Ground, continues nonetheless. He can't leave the ground till he gets his match fee, can't leave the dressing room till the hundred-odd fans have moved out of the way. He has also scheduled a visit to a temple before evening practice.

We start chatting in the dressing room, a small classroom overlooking the small ground. Karthik is like a diligent student being put to test. On the other side of the closed door, fans wait to pounce as soon as he appears. He is quite embarrassed by all the attention, though he tries his best to conceal it. He has just returned from a successful tour of South Africa - one where he admits to having "grown as a cricketer".

In the last few years, he has grown as a person too. He stays by himself in Chennai - his parents and younger brother, based in Bahrain, don't fly down as frequently as they used to. He has realised that today's fans can be tomorrow's critics, and is doing his best to rein in his "positive mindset".

He says he has always been an "extremely positive person, sometimes too positive." There may be a few factors behind this: his backyard battles with his father during his early years in Kuwait, when he usually faced a barrage of bouncers, his faith in the "Art of Living" course which his father says "changed his way of thinking", and his willingness to work his pants off in an attempt to improve his game.

In a short career of 11 Tests and eight ODIs, Karthik has consistently backed himself under pressure. There are plenty of instances of this tendency - be it the gravity-defying swoop to stump Michael Vaughan in his one-day debut at Lord's, or the reverse sweep off Danish Kaneria with four men on the leg-side fence in the India-Pakistan Test at Kolkata, or the first-ball four off Jason Gillespie on his Test debut at Mumbai, or even the first-ball sweep off Paul Harris, who was operating from over the wicket and landing it in the rough, in the second innings at Cape Town.

It is fitting that Karthik, who rattles his answers at you, begins by talking about his high strike-rate while trying to arrive at his definition of "positive". "I've always been an extremely positive batsman, and my strike-rate in Ranji games has always been close to 100. It resulted in some rash shots, costing me my wicket after a start. Over the last six months or so, I've become much better in that aspect. In my first stint with the Indian team, I was probably over-positive. In Bangladesh, in both innings I got out to cut shots. I hit six fours in my 25 at Dhaka but didn't carry on. At Chittagong, I was trying to hit over the top when I was on 11. I don't think I will bat like that now.

"A lot of people think being positive is playing aggressive shots and hitting over the top. But I've realised you can be very positive with your defence as well - going fully forward, leaving the ball correctly, judging the line. If I can get to defend with the middle of the bat, if I can leave with confidence, I see myself as being positive. That's all I try to do in all my innings - looking positive and at the same time playing correctly."

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Once in the car, comfortable in the back seat after wading through the autograph hunters, Karthik readily acknowledges those responsible for the change. Bharat Arun, the former Tamil Nadu coach who managed two Tests for India in the mid-eighties, is someone Karthik terms his "best friend". Arun, a burly medium-pacer and beefy middle-order batsman, ended with a modest record of four wickets in two Tests, and will be forever remembered for the inauspicious start to his Test career - falling flat on the pitch while following through.

Arun, who is amused by the four-Karthiks-in-one-body theory, speaks of the one constant in Karthik's life. "He's always been a cricket freak. You can never stop him from working at his game, how much ever you try. If he's working on his fitness, he can go on all day. Once, in Tirunelveli, he worked out so much that he couldn't stay awake for dinner. His parents are wary of practising with him in the backyard because he never stops asking for throwdowns. Now that his parents aren't there, he asks his driver and caretaker.

"If he wants to improve in a particular area, he gets obsessive. I've seen him practise 200 reverse sweeps in a session, such is his passion. Even when he was a wicketkeeper, he used to practise his fielding - that's why he's such a good slider. He's always wanted to do everything and was confident enough to manage it. I don't think he'll ever give up his wicketkeeping, even if he's chosen as a specialist batsman, because he's so eager to work on all aspects."

Arun remembers Boxing Day, 2005 at the Wankhede Stadium, which both Karthik and he believe was the "turning point". The squad to Pakistan had just been announced; Dhoni and Parthiv Patel were the chosen wicketkeepers. Mumbai had piled on 430 in the first innings, and Karthik walked in with Tamil Nadu reeling at 85 for 5, soon to become 91 for 6. What followed was a furious 182-ball 134, punctuated with 19 fours and a six. Arun can't remember a Karthik innings with "more punch", and recalls how Dilip Vengsarkar, who was watching, applauded readily.

"It was a really important innings because it opened up the floodgates for that year," Karthik says. "I got runs after that in Deodhar Trophy and overcame a lean patch. Being dropped obviously hurt but one needed to stand up and be honest. If you've given them a chance to drop you, probably you need to get better. If you look at it that way, there is less chance of you brooding and thinking that people are against you."

Sandeep Patil, the India A coach for the tours of Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2004, didn't hide his preferences when asked to compare the two talented wicketkeepers he oversaw. "Karthik is an ideal No. 6 batsman for Tests and one-dayers," he had told cricinfo.com. "He's in the mould of Adam Gilchrist, Moin Khan, and Romesh Kaluwitharana - who can win a match on his own. I recommended Karthik to the selectors, but it was a very close call between him and Dhoni."

Though they have had to slug it out for one spot, the two seem to have developed a healthy rapport. "A lot of people know Dhoni as a flamboyant batsman, but in his life outside cricket, he's a very, very, very, very nice person," Karthik says, breaking off with the superlatives only because he is lost for breath. "He's someone who you can approach and talk to about anything in life. He's very quiet, goes and sits in the last seat in the bus, doesn't interfere with anything. He doesn't say much in team meetings, but whatever he says makes a lot of sense."

It was the West Indies tour, where his only chance came in the warm-up game before the Tests, that helped Karthik "get to know" Dhoni and others in the side. "I used to watch Rahul Dravid and Sachin [Tendulkar] quite a lot while growing up. Sachin is a genius, so it's tough to follow him, but I can relate to Rahul. I started picking up points from him. Surprisingly Yuvi [Yuvraj] and Veeru [Sehwag] have been a big influence. They've told me a lot of positives about my batting and made me think about it. I also have to give credit to Greg [Chappell], who talked a lot to me about the mental side of my batting.

"We missed Sachin in West Indies but he was great company in South Africa. I will never forget one piece of advice he gave me: when you're doing well, it's important to continue the same way, and not try and find errors. Sometimes when you do well, it's good to assess yourself and improve, but sometimes you can scrutinise yourself too much. That might work against you."

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Karthik made a measured, poised half-century against South Africa at Cape Town © Getty Images

The tours to the West Indies and South Africa were vital learning curves for Karthik the batsman - he's in the one-day side as a specialist - but one needs to go back to Eden Gardens in early 2005 for a starting point. Until then he was a talented No. 7, skilled at batting with the tail. India were 156 for 4, with Mohammad Sami in the middle of a scorching spell. VVS Laxman had retired hurt after being hit by a high-velocity bouncer. Karthik walked into the most imposing of arenas with the Test match hanging in the balance.

"My dad always insisted that I needed to play with older boys. I used to be scared of fast bowling initially. But my technique has been my strong point. I'm not worried too much of the short and pacy ball; it's the pitched-up ball that troubles you, especially in India.

"Sami was bowling a quick spell that day. On those sort of wickets, you don't expect anyone to come and bowl so quick, but he was skidding it fast. I was looking to play him out and started slowly but picked up later. My confidence was low but that innings cleared out many doubts." Karthik's 93, along with his 167-run partnership with Dravid, turned the match comprehensively in India's favour.

Since then he's always been eager to face the new ball, keen to be first up against the quick bowlers. In a club game earlier this season, he opened for his club side and cracked a mammoth 400 against the top team in the Chennai first division. Soon after, in what may prove to have been a big step, he approached Laxman, his zonal captain, and offered to open in the Duleep Trophy. Karthik insists it was a decision based on his desire to improve as a batsman, rather than a well-thought-out move to regain his national spot.

"I wanted to open to get more chances to score," he insists. "The new ball swings, but I wanted to learn to play that. After 30-40 overs it becomes easy for batting.

I would face quality bowlers first up - Zaheer Khan opened in one game. Also, it helped the team because we could play an extra batsman. In the game against Sri Lanka A, Arjun Yadav got a hundred from No. 7 when we were 14 for 5. If I hadn't opened, he wouldn't have played."

The value of that decision was evident at Cape Town, where, thrust into opening in a Test for the first time, he crafted a measured and technically polished half-century. In the second innings, with India trying to stretch their lead, he showed what confidence could achieve. Ironically, just before he had come out, Tendulkar and Dravid, his two heroes, had struggled to get the ball off the square, but Karthik swept, cut, and drove without fear to take India's lead past 200 before getting stranded. "Had I got some support from the tail, we could have surely got 50 runs more," he says, "and South Africa couldn't have reached 260 so easily."

He was chosen as a specialist batsman for the tour, and after three striking innings in the series - the match-winning 31 not out in the Twenty20, the patient 63 on the opening day of the third Test, and the energetic 38 not out in the second, he kept his place for the one-dayers against West Indies as a batsman. In the second ODI, on a slow and double-bounced pitch at Cuttack, he added to his growing reputation with a skillful half-century after the top order had caved in.

Is that how he sees his career playing out? Does he foresee giving up wicketkeeping, taking the route Jimmy Adams, Lou Vincent, and AB de Villers did? He refuses to even consider the thought. "I usually bat well when I'm keeping well, it's a matter of confidence. I will definitely be keeping in domestic cricket."

What Karthik has certainly managed to do is open up an option for the selectors - and himself. He is a player the team would go an extra mile to put on the field.