Former Indian wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik has endorsed the selection of young batter Devdutt Padikkal in India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming two-Test home series against the West Indies, beginning in Ahmedabad on October 2. Padikkal had missed the latter part of IPL 2025 due to a hamstring injury, which also kept him out of India’s recent Test tour of England.
However, the left-hander made a strong comeback by scoring a superb 150 in a four-day match for India A against Australia A last week. Sharing his views on the youngster’s call-up for the West Indies Tests, Karthik said on Cricbuzz (27:30):
“I really feel Devdutt being given an opportunity is a good thing because he has got 80 in Australia (for India A last year). He’s got skills because Australia is a very hard place to play and he got runs there. And the England series last year, he got a 50 in Dharamsala.”
“So he has earned his stripes. He got injured and that’s why Karun Nair came into the squad. Otherwise Devdutt would have been part of the squad from day one in England. So he has earned his recall into the Indian team.”
“Tough On Him”: Dinesh Karthik Reacts To Karun Nair’s Exclusion
Dinesh Karthik feels that Karun Nair’s omission from India’s squad for the West Indies series might indicate that the team is moving on from him in the longer format. The 33-year-old had made a remarkable return to the Indian Test side for the recent England tour after an eight-year gap.
However, Nair found it tough with the bat during the series, scoring only one half-century and averaging a modest 25.62 across eight innings.
“The fact that Karun Nair is not looked at anymore means they are moving on from him, which is very tough on him. I think he played in one of the toughest series on tough pitches. But in all fairness, he’ll look back himself and say, ‘Could I have scored more runs in a couple of innings at the start, in the first three Tests?’ Because in the last Test, he got a 50 on a tough pitch,” said Karthik (via the aforementioned source).
He further added:
“I can promise you if he was playing this series, he would get runs. It’s almost a given, the way he’s batting. The fact is they are saying, ‘Big series, we have him an opportunity and he didn’t deliver. So we move on to somebody young for the future’.”
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