Veteran Indian keeper-batter Dinesh Karthik shared his views about India ‘A’ captain Abhimanyu Easwaran being called up to the national side following Rohit Sharma‘s injury. Abhimanyu Easwaran is often hailed for his old-school approach towards the game as he doesn’t play in the IPL, doesn’t even register for the auctions and instead, focuses on domestic cricket. He has been giving consistent performances in the domestic circuit for quite a long time now and owning to those performances, he was rewarded with his maiden international call-up as well.
Easwaran recently registered two centuries in India A side’s 1-0 win over Bangladesh across an unofficial Test series earlier this month as well. He has an average of 45.33 in first-class cricket as well. Before this, Easwaran was also named on the standby list during India’s World Test Championship (WTC) final squad as well as the tour of England last year in 2021.
Abhimanyu Easwaran was rewarded for his hard work in the domestic circuit:
All thanks to his stunning performances for India A, he was selected in the India squad for the first Test of the series after captain Rohit Sharma was ruled out of the series because of an injured thumb, however, the talented batter might not get to break into the XI as stand-in captain KL Rahul and Shubman Gill are going to be preferred for the role of openers. But veteran India cricketer Dinesh Karthik believes Easwaran is someone who is ‘banging at the doors’ very hard and will get soon get an opportunity.
Speaking on Cricbuzz ahead of the first Test match against Bangladesh in Chattogram starting Wednesday, Dinesh Karthik talked about Easwaran and explained why he might not get a chance to play in the upcoming series. He said:
“Abhimanyu Easwaran has been around the circuit for some time now, has done really well and now deservingly gets his opportunity. He might not play in the XI because of KL Rahul and Shubman Gill… for sure they will open. I can promise you he’s another guy who has been constantly banging at the door. He has been a very good servant for Bengal in the four or five seasons. His dad is someone who has a fantastic ground in Dehradun, have fond memories of going there. That kid is somebody who has worked so hard, I’ve seen him, I’ve played with him, practice with him. I have seen how hard he works,”
Besides, Easwaran, left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar and veteran Jaydev Unadkat were also added to the India squad after putting in the hard yards for years in the domestic circuit. Dinesh Karthik praised the selectors for giving importance to domestic performances. He said:
“Credit to the selectors for giving a lot of time to these performances that happen in domestic cricket because sometimes it can go unnoticed, it’s good to see them getting noticed,”
