Veteran India wicketkeeper batter Dinesh Karthik said on Tuesday he could understand it would be “hard to swallow” for Wriddhiman Saha when team management decided to swerve from him, but said the call was quite understandable given Rishabh Pant “pretty much nailed its place to the side.” Karthik praised the wicket-keeping skills of Saha, who was banned from the Indian Test squad for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka, saying: “But you can see Rishabh Pant has pretty much taken his place in the team. So then you can understand which way the Indian team is going, where they feel that if it becomes a second goalkeeper role they will be looking at someone younger.”
Karthik was sympathetic to Saha and said it was not easy for a cricketer to accept rejection.
“I’m pretty sure wherever I’ve seen Wriddhiman’s interviews, he understands where this decision is coming from,” the Tamil Nadu cricketer told the ICC Review.
“I know no cricketer will accept that if you are told to move on. It is very difficult because this is what they have been doing day in and day out.
“We all want to represent the country and that’s everyone’s burning desire. So when someone comes in and says ‘I think your time is up’ it can be hard to swallow. But it’s understandable and you have to understand where the selectors, the coach and the captain come from,” said Karthik.
He was full of praise for Saha’s contributions to Indian cricket. Kudos to Wriddhiman Saha. I think he’s been one of those brilliant, quiet servants of Indian cricket who’s done so well for years.” “He’s still one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, by distance – I rate him as the best wicketkeeper in the world. He’s got great hands, he moves really well… he’s a great wicketkeeper. played in international cricket for centuries and played some really crucial, important strokes when Team India needed it,” Karthik added.
But after Pant’s emergence, Karthik said it was understandable why the team management made the decision to leave Saha.
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“Just like MS Dhoni came in all those years ago, we’ve had a Rishabh Pant that’s come in over the years and it’s done really well,” he said. “When that happens, Saha has clearly become the second wicket-keeper and has traveled with the team and played a game here and there.” Saha, 37, was left out of India’s test squad for the upcoming two-game series against Sri Lanka, with Pant and KS Bharat being chosen for the matches.
Saha later revealed that he had heard from India’s head coach, Rahul Dravid, that the team would like to leave the veteran. Saha has represented India in 40 tests, scoring 1,353 runs in three centuries and six fifties and making 104 layoffs.
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