In a recent interview with News18, Dinesh Karthik argued his case for a place in the India T20 side, citing that he thought he “had done phenomenally well for India in T20s up till then, but because the World Cup did not go well, I got chucked out of the T20 as well.”

The word “phenomenally” in particular stands out. Karthik isn’t just one of the many players with an arguable case for India in T20Is; while he was in the team, he was one of their best players. The wicketkeeper batsman is still churning out the runs for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, and explained how “India definitely needs a finisher there”.

The numbers back up Karthik’s argument. Since 2019, India’s lower middle-order (positions No.5 to No. 7) — that boasts the likes of Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja among others in a similar role — have had middling returns in T20Is, faring well below a lot of top tier teams heading into the T20 World Cup. The combined batting strike-rates of India’s lower middle-order is less than 130, whereas teams like England, South Africa and New Zealand, amidst other Associate teams, edge closer to the 140 mark.

In this period, Hardik has a strike-rate of 129.13 when batting at No.5 or below, while Pant is at 120 when batting in these positions. The only one to be at the higher end of the bar is Jadeja, who boasts of a strike-rate of 157.69 in these positions since 2019. Karthik last played a T20 international in February 2019, featuring in series against Australia at home and away and in New Zealand. In the four knocks he mustered together in the three series, Karthik struck at a rate of 200 and above in two matches.

High impact, short knocks aren't alien to Karthik in this format. That's exactly where his strength lies. While his Nidahas knock — the one where he sent the Indians into a frenzy with a last-ball six in the finals to win the game against Bangladesh — has gained a cult status among T20 fanatics, Karthik's evolution into a death-overs beast is reflected in other innings too.

Since 2018 for India, Karthik has remained unbeaten in nine of his 13 T20I innings, going at a strike-rate of over 200 in six of them. The only times he faced over 15 balls and still had a strike-rate less than 150 was against Australia in Sydney (22* off 18) where he marshalled a run-chase till the end and against West Indies in Kolkata where his 31* off 34 balls took India over the line in a tricky run-chase of 110.

In fact, since the end of the last T20 World Cup in 2016, Karthik is among the best ball-strikers in the death overs not just in the India team, but in the world, as the chart below shows.

 

It is worth noting that the other Indian players in the list are both top-order batters — Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. It exemplifies India's approach in the format: pack the side with top-order anchor batsmen who excel in ODIs and get a couple of them to bat deep. It's not that it hasn't worked well so far, but the fact that even this seemingly low-risk method can be prone to spectacular failures — the 2016 T20 World Cup semi-final is a case in point..

While IPL performances are keenly backed now team selection, Karthik's name has rarely come up in discussions despite him doing exceedingly well in the league in the last few years. This is perhaps down to how he has been used in the franchise setup, and also for India a lot of times in this format.

Since the 2016 World T20, clubbing together the data from the IPL, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and T20Is, it is interesting to note that Karthik has often been used more in the middle overs where his impact is drastically reduced, the reason for which we will come to later.

The numbers show that Karthik has faced nearly 60 per cent of his deliveries in the middle overs. His strike-rate in this phase is around 126, but shoots up to 178 in the death overs, a number that is up even higher in recent years. KKR's usage of Karthik has often been debatable with Andre Russell usually sent lower down the order than Karthik, negatively impacting the performance of both players.

In the last five overs, Karthik not only has a clear idea of what he has to do - something he is extremely good at - but also faces little of spinners, a recent nemesis of his. Since the start of 2018 in the IPL, Karthik has been dismissed 10 times by leg-spinners, averaging just 17.6 against them.

His record against leg-spin has remained suspect since the end of the 2016 T20 World Cup and with teams increasing the usage of these spinners in the middle overs, Karthik, given how teams have used him, has often been exposed. With spin being a risky option in the death, Karthik gets to face pace, and he has excelled at this, striking at nearly 150 against the quicks across five years in different competitions.

In the IPL, where the best in the world assemble, Karthik's proficiency in the death overs is exemplary. Among Indian batters in the last three IPL seasons, only four players have a better strike-rate than him in the last five overs. Only two among them score boundaries more frequently than Karthik.

Karthik scores a boundary every 3.4 balls in the death overs in the last three IPL seasons. It's on par with Pant (also every 3.4 balls) and Hardik (every 3.5 balls). But, there's a reason Karthik's claim is stronger than ever before now.

In the T20Is against England earlier this year and in the IPL after that, teams targeted Hardik with pace and bounce, something he did not counter well as reflected from the drop in IPL strike-rate from 178.98 in 2020 to 118.18 in 2021 at the time the season was postponed.

Pant's strike-rate also saw a steep drop in the last two IPL editions, and while that might be temporary glitch, having someone like Karthik to complement the two, and Jadeja down the order is a luxury India can have, yet choose not to.

It isn't too late to change the script and pack the middle-order with hitters who can build on the platform that the top-order batters are capable of putting together with regularity. Karthik's inclusion could also help Hardik and Pant to face more of spin in the middle overs with the former Kolkata skipper and Jadeja inked in to capitalise on pace in the death. It isn't a foolproof template, but is among the best of the many combinations that the talent pool allows India to play.