Dinesh Karthik will be playing his final IPL season this year as per reports. The veteran India keeper, who is one of the seven players to have featured in every IPL season since its inception in 2008 is gearing up for his farewell IPL season with Royal Challengers Bangalore and likely to take a call on his international career soon after as per ESPN Cricinfo.
Karthik currently is the tenth highest run-getter in the league’s history with 4516 runs and is only behind MS Dhoni (250) and Rohit Sharma (243) in terms of most matches played in IPL history, with 242 matches. What is most astonishing is that the 39-year-old has only missed two matches in the last 16 seasons of IPL.
Karthik is only behind Dhoni (180) for most dismissals for a wicketkeeper in the league with 169 dismissals. Karthik has represented six teams in the IPL starting out with the now defunct Delhi Daredevils in the inaugural season. He captained the Delhi franchise in six games as stand-in skipper and went on to lead Kolkata Knight Riders in 37 matches between 2018-20.
Last year, turning up for RCB, Karthik had an underwhelming tournament scoring 140 runs in 13 matches at an average of 11.67. But the season prior, in 2022 Karthik had a windfall season as a finisher scoring 330 runs at 55.00 in 16 matches and was instrumental in RCB’s run to the play-offs. The performance earned him a recall to the Indian side for the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia.
Karthik was with DD from 2008 to 2010 before moving to Kings XI Punjab in 2011. In 2012 and 2013 he played for Mumbai Indians and then was part of DD for one season in 2014 and then RCB in 2015. He then represented Gujarat Lions outfit for two seasons in (2016 and 2017). He moved to Kolkata Knight Riders in 2018 and was there till 2021. He was then picked up by RCB in 2022.
