Dinesh Karthik apologizes for leaving out MS Dhoni from his all-time India playing XI
Remarkably, MS Dhoni was left off of former Indian wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik's list of his finest all-format India XI, which was announced last week. Cricket fans around were taken aback by Karthik's choice to disregard Dhoni, and he received a lot of negative feedback as a result. But he has now given an explanation for his decision to leave Dhoni out in the most recent HeyCB episode with DK.
“Bhai log bada galti ho gaya. Genuinely, Actually, it was a mistake. I realized this when the episode came out. There were so many things happening that when I put this 11 on, I actually forgot about the keeper. Luckily, Rahul Dravid was there, so everyone thought I would hire a part-time wicketkeeper. But really, I didn't think of Rahul Dravid as a keeper,” he said.
“That team, if I had to do it again, that would be the one change I would make. Thala Dhoni is at number 7 and he will be the captain of any Indian team. There is no doubt about it,'' he said.
In his all-time India XI, Karthik had picked Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag as openers and included Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virat Kohli at No. 3, 4, and 5, respectively. Yuvraj Singh and Ravindra Jadeja were the two all-rounders, followed by two spinners, Ravichandran Ashwin and Anil Kumble, and two pacers, Jasprit Bumrah and Zaheer Khan.