Karthik takes his chance

Even before Dinesh Karthik got a chance to set a goal for the Ranji season this year Kris Srikkanth stepped in and did the job for him. The chairman of selectors told Karthik bluntly what the Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper-batsman needed to do to get back into the national reckoning: Score a lot of runs and keep well. "I knew what was expected right away," Karthik said on Friday, minutes after he was named in the Indian squad for the New Zealand series.

After disappointing in the first two Tests in Sri Lanka last year, Karthik was replaced by Parthiv Patel for the final match. Both were there because Mahendra Singh Dhoni had opted out but neither made an impression; nonetheless, they remained the front-runners for the second keeper's slot.

It was a close race but Karthik seems to have tipped the balance with the big runs he managed in the domestic game, even if the chinks in his glovework remained. He was No. 10 on the Ranji Trophy run-makers' list and the highest scorer in the Duleep Trophy; he had five centuries in all - three in the Ranji, including a double, and two in three Duleep games for South Zone.

It's been quite a turnaround from the Sri Lanka debacle but Karthik, who at 23 has dealt with adversity before, wasn't about to march off into the shadows. "I have been dropped before but it was tough when I returned from Sri Lanka. But you need to go through it and understand what you need to do to get back into the team."

He had lots of help. First, prompted by coach WV Raman, the Tamil Nadu selectors made him captain. "He has a restless mind and it would have rankled him after being dropped. And I wanted someone who would be constant through the season since [Subramaniam] Badrinath was going to be with the national squad," Raman said.

Karthik agrees. "To be part of the team as a player and to lead it are two different things. If I was just a player I wouldn't have been part of a lot of decision-making and I probably wouldn't have played as responsibly as I did as a captain. The captaincy meant that I had to lead a group of people who were looking to win the Ranji Trophy, and I had a coach who was backing me, and a set of selectors who believed in my thoughts. These things gave me the belief that if I did well on the domestic circuit my performance would be recognised and I might get another chance."

He worked hard on his batting with his personal coaches, focusing primarily on two aspects: strokeplay and defensive technique, and batted with far more application and purpose than before. And the results came. A fine example was his cavalier innings against Central Zone during the Duleep game when the other specialist batsmen had departed. At 86 for 6 Karthik felt the only thing he could do was go for broke. South ended up making a respectable 329.

"The situation just happened and I couldn't plan anything. I had to go out there and figure out how I could help the team. I went with the normal mindset of a No.7, but when wickets started falling I realised that if we had to win we had to up the run-rate, so I started to play my shots and it came out well."

It didn't always come off. In the Ranji semi-finals against Uttar Pradesh he dropped catches at crucial junctures, which played a huge role in Tamil Nadu failing to make it to the final. Karthik accepts the blame squarely. "I was disappointed with my keeping in the semi-final but that can happen in a long season. But that is the thing with a wicketkeeper: I honestly had a good season till then and suddenly I dropped a few. After the dropped catches we were out of the Ranji Trophy, so people dependent on me were upset with me and I was upset with myself."

Raman has a word of caution. "There were will be a lot more deviation when he keeps to the likes of Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma on the seaming pitches in New Zealand. So he needs to ensure he does not trust the ball to come straight as an arrow as it does on Indian tracks. He needs to stay focused till the ball comes into his hands."

But Karthik seems to have picked himself up already. "The one thing you learn by sitting out is the fire inside increases to get back into the Indian team. India are now competing with South Africa to be the number one and you want contribute. That is what I want to do."