Kolkata,
\nDinesh Karthik on Sunday acknowledged that he has an onerous task of replacing a very successful Gautam Gambhir but asserted that he has it in him to steer Kolkata Knight Riders to at least the IPL Play-offs and get the best out of his side.<\/p>\n
KKR think tank chose not to retain two-time IPL winning skipper Gambhir and handed the reins of the team to the Tamil Nadu batsman, bought for Rs 7.4 crore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Gautam Gambhir has achieved for KKR is phenomenal. He\u2019s left a benchmark,\u201d Karthik said after joining his new team and on the sidelines of their jersey launch.<\/p>\n
Under Gambhir, KKR twice emerged champions (2012, 2014) and also made the Play-offs thrice (2011, 2016 and 2017).<\/p>\n
Karthik has wealth of experience having played for as many as five different IPL franchisees\u2014Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians, Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Daredevils and Gujarat Lions in last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a leader of the team, the management will expect from me the same. I\u2019m aware of the expectations. Yes, there would be pressure. As a captain, you\u2019re expected to at least go to the Playoffs, that\u2019s the least anybody can expect. I think I\u2019m at a stage where I can handle it and get the best out of the team,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n
Karthik looked a transformed batsman in the Tri-nation final against Bangladesh in Colombo last month when his last-ball six sealed a nervy win for India.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been close to 10 days now since that innings, things have moved on, people have moved on. We have a new bunch of boys. It was a great game as I\u2019ve said. When we play Bangladesh, it\u2019s a different kind of pressure. If you win, you are like \u2018okay you\u2019ve won\u2019, but if you lose it\u2019s like \u2018wake up, what you doing\u2019 types.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good start, it dipped in the middle. I just had to hit boundaries when I got in. I was lucky on that day. We had a good season, and for us not win that game would not have been nice to end the series. It was a great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karthik hinted that he might promote himself in the batting order when they open their IPL-11 campaign against Royal Challengers Bangalore at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I will bat at different position than what I did in the Indian game. IPL is about dealing with tricky situations, handling pressure. It\u2019s just a week to go and I don\u2019t think I will treat myself any differently. Everybody is here to do their best and I\u2019m no different. Everybody has a role to play,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While Karthik will be busy with his IPL assignment, his wife and India\u2019s squash ace Dipika Pallikal is eyeing a second gold at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kolkata, Dinesh Karthik on Sunday acknowledged that he has an onerous task of replacing a very successful Gautam Gambhir but asserted that he has it in him to steer Kolkata Knight Riders to at least the IPL Play-offs and get the best out of his side. KKR think tank chose not to retain two-time IPL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26712,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26710\/revisions\/26712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}