K.K. Dinesh Karthik.

Tamil Nadu – the erstwhile Madras included – has boasted of some good wicket-keepers, including quite a few who represented India in official or unofficial Tests. Madras Musings Editor S. Muthiah rates H.P. Ward – one of the four musketeers he eulogises in his riveting Spirit of Chepauk – as worthy of a place in his all-time State XI. S.V.T. Chari, S. Parthasarathi and M.O. Srinivasan kept wickets for India in unofficial Tests, and D.L. Chakravarthi, P.K. Belliappa, Bharath Reddy, M. Sanjay and Dinesh Karthik have been some of the prominent names among those who did duty for the State behind the stumps through the decades.

With due respect to the Editor’s choice as well as the reputations of all the other ’keepers in this list, I zoomed in on the two Tamil Nadu stumpers who have played official Tests. Bharath Reddy was in the 1970s an athletic wicket keeper who occasionally played a useful tailend batsman’s role. In the four Tests he played on the 1979 tour of England, he had a highest score of 21 and nine catches and two stumpings. He also played three ODIs.

My choice for the wicket-keeper’s slot, however, is Dinesh Karthik, who has 56 victims in Test cricket and 51 in one-day internationals. He has also scored exactly 1000 runs in Test cricket – including a highest of 129 – with an average of nearly 28, and 1263 runs in ODIs. Though he has not quite lived up to his early promise, he has quite a few fighting innings and at least one incredible stumping to his credit at the highest level – during the Nat West Challenge series in 2004 in England.

I first set my eyes on K.K. Dinesh Karthik around the first year of the millennium, when he made two consecutive tall scores at the junior level to attract everyone’s attention. I also happened to watch two successive hundreds by him in the Ranji Trophy. Both were daring counterattacks launched by him, with Tamil Nadu in deep trouble. Both were splendid rearguard actions. He performed brilliantly in the Under-19 World Cup in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Making his Test debut against Australia on a notorious Wankhede Stadium wicket in Mumbai, Karthik was part of an Indian batting line-up which was bundled out in the second innings by the left-arm spin of Clarke. India, however, won the match by 13 runs. Though Karthik failed with the bat, he did a reasonable job behind the stumps.

In Test cricket, Dinesh Karthik’s wicket keeping was fairly decent, though he had a few off days. Scoring only one half century in ten Tests (88 against England), he was forced to make way for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, one of the most exciting prospects for a long time in Indian cricket. Karthik, however, returned for India’s tour of South Africa towards the end of 2006, and consolidated his position in both Tests and ODIs. On the tour of Bangladesh in 2007, he was a specialist Test opener and scored 129, his only test hundred, in the second Test in Dhaka.

There was perhaps not much to choose between Karthik and Dhoni, when the present Indian captain first replaced him in the team, but Dhoni was a brilliant if unorthodox batsman, as we all know, and has improved his keeping by leaps and bounds over the years. Add his superb captaincy skills, and it is a wonder that Dinesh has managed to remain in contention for a place in the India team at all.

Unfortunately, Dinesh failed to capitalise on his chances when Dhoni dropped out of a Sri Lanka tour in 2008, failing both in front of the stumps and behind them.

In domestic cricket, Dinesh has been consistency personified for Tamil Nadu and South Zone, barring one or two relatively unsuccessful seasons. The 2008-09 season was a high point. He scored three centuries in the Ranji Trophy and captained Tamil Nadu through to the semi-finals. He also scored two centuries in the Duleep Trophy, earning a recall to the Indian team, for the tour of New Zealand, being selected in all three forms of the game.

The last season has perhaps been by far the most satisfying for Dinesh. He played a major role in Mumbai’s success in the IPL, which earned him a berth in the ODI side for the 2013 Champions Trophy in England. Earlier, he had been Tamil Nadu’s most successful batsman of the season.

India’s captain Dhoni says of Karthik, “He is someone who can bat really well in the middle order. He is a good runner. He reads the situation pretty well and he is someone who can look to go on and play big innings and that is what is really important in the middle order. He is technically sound and once he gets going he keeps himself busy throughout the innings.”

A restless, energetic soul, Dinesh Karthik follows a punishing work schedule. Training with Prasanna Agoram, the South African team’s video analyst, and S. Basu, trainer with Royal Challengers Bangalore and a close friend, the 28-year-old sets the bar very high for himself in terms of improving his technique and focus. He is perhaps approaching his peak as a batsman and ’keeper in all three forms of the game, and with the support of the likes of Dhoni and Ponting – his erstwhile Mumbai Indians senior – he is poised for a brand new phase in his cricket career. If he learns to unwind a bit, relax when the chips are down, and wait patiently for better days, he can continue to play a vital role in Tamil Nadu’s Ranji Trophy campaign. And he may still figure in the selectors’ scheme of things for the 2015 World Cup.