Dinesh Karthik must be loving life at the moment. The veteran Indian wicketkeeper-batsman played a sublime knock of 55 runs off 27 balls to not only score his first-ever fifty for India in T20I cricket, but he also surpassed MS Dhoni to achieve a huge personal milestone.
DK led from the front as India registered a huge 82-run win over South Africa to bring themselves level in the ongoing five-match T20I series, with the series decider scheduled for Sunday.
Having helped Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) reach the playoffs of IPL 2022, the 37-year-old stunning form helped him seal a comeback to the Indian side, and now he's winning games for India again.
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The middle-order batsman made his T20I debut 16 years ago when India played South Africa (coincidentally) for the first time in a T20I match. In the 35 T20I games since, DK was unable to score a half-century but that long wait ended on Friday as his fifty helped turned the tide in India's favour.
And in the process, Dinesh Karthik also achieved a huge personal milestone as he surpassed MS Dhoni to become the oldest Indian player to score a fifty in T20I cricket.
Moreover, what will further please the Indian selectors is that Karthik's knock came at a time when India were reeling at 81-4. In a contest which India needed to win at any cost to keep themselves alive in the series, DK came out to bat after skipper Rishabh Pant was dismissed and he combed with vice-captain Hardik Pandya to lethal effect.
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India were 95/4 after 15 overs, but they registered a target of 169, thanks to big-hitting from DK and Pandya, who racked up a 65-run stand, with Karthik hitting nine fours and two sixes en route to his fifty.
At 37 years and 16 days, Dinesh Karthik became the oldest Indian to score a fifty in T20Is, with MS Dhoni holding the previous record, after registering his second T20I fifty versus South Africa itself, in 2018.
The fifth and final match of the series between India and South Africa will be played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, on Sunday, with the series evenly poised at 2-2.
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