Indian fans will never forget their triumph in the Nidahas Trophy final against Bangladesh in 2018. They needed 5 off the last ball and Dinesh Karthik finished the game with a six.
It remains the one of greatest achievements of Karthik’s international career. He was strangely sent in as late as No.7 in a chase of 167. Undeterred by that, Karthik scored a remarkable 8-ball 29*, including a last-ball six against Soumya Sarkar to seal the deal for India.
Speaking on the RCB Podcast Season 2, Dinesh Karthik recalled his heroics in the Nidahas Trophy final to pull off a heist for India.
“I have talked about this for more times than I have wanted to. It has now become the most-watched video in the history of sports on YouTube. The second most watched sports video ever on YouTube is that 19th over. It is amazing how it works,” Karthik stated.
He added, “The backstory of the game was that we played the Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka had won their first two matches in the league phase. It was a tri-nation tournament where each team had to play each other twice. In the first two games they won and had one foot in the final. It so ended up happening that they ended up losing their last two matches and rather badly to Bangladesh. Then they ended up losing out on a chance to the final.”
Karthik stated that he was padded up to step in right from the second over but was made to sit by skipper Rohit Sharma until the 18th over.
The veteran wicketkeeper said, “The first half was pretty much decent as the Indian bowlers did a great job. The second half came and they were way ahead of us. They were dominating us and we were struggling. So it came to a stage where there were 2 overs remaining and we needed 34 runs. I was padded up to go. I padded up in the second or the third over, waiting to walk out. I kept on standing up to walk out and Rohit told me, not now. There was a wicket in the 15th over. I was sure that it was my turn to walk out in the center.”
“Rohit once again made me sit and in the 18th over, it was Manish Pandey who got out. Eventually, I went to the center. Two overs and 34 runs mean that you will obviously have to try and go at as many balls as you can. I started hitting and the fans brought out the Naagin Dance and we ended up winning the match,” he further remarked.
“So when you face an equation of 34 from 2 overs, you obviously end up thinking where to hit boundaries and so. I found myself in a few good positions and played some good shots. They didn’t see it coming because they had actually done a phenomenal job until then. Then came the final over and there was a barrage of yorkers being hurled at us. We couldn’t get anything in our favour and luckily one of them ran to the boundary and somehow I managed to get the strike,” he concluded.
