Virat Kohli sent Dinesh Karthik to bat at no. 5 in the ICC World Cup semi-finals 2019 against New Zealand. The decision surprised Karthik. Dinesh Karthik opened up about the reason why the team management sent him to bat at five in the 2019 World Cup semifinal ahead of MS Dhoni. Karthik has a horrible time in the middle as he could manage to core only six off 25 balls.

He finally mistimed a shot of Matt Henry and got out, which made things worse. According to Karthik, the defeat shocked the Indian team and no one expected it. The Men In Blue were very dominant in the league phase but could not deliver when it mattered.

Karthik revealed the reason why the team management promoted him to No. 5

Karthik came out to bat when India had already lost three wickets for five runs. MS Dhoni only came out to bat after Hardik Pandya’s dismissal in the 23rd over. India had already slipped to 71 for five at that stage. Karthik said that the team management sent him up the order to stop the fall of wickets.

“It came as a bit of a surprise because they had made it very clear that I would be batting at number seven. We had to send a rear-guard action just to stem the flow of wickets. I was told to pad up and it all happened in a daze, in a hurry,” Karthik said to Cricbuzz in a recent interview.

In the World Cup, India’s top three consisting of the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul scored most of the runs. Moreover, the middle-order was not under any sort of test in the tournament. So, they already knew if, on a given day the top order fails, India could be running into serious trouble.

“There were many games when a lot of the middle order did not even get to bat. It was a hard thing because someone like Dhoni likes to play an x number of balls in a tournament especially leading up to the semi-final. It could be hard in that tournament,” Karthik said.

Even MS Dhoni could have been under pressure in World Cup semi-finals.

Karthik even explained that the knockout game’s pressure can even trouble an experienced player like MS Dhoni.  “You could have the experience, yes, a player like Dhoni has played 300 games, but a World Cup semi-final is a World Cup semi-final. It has its beauty and the pressure around it,” Karthik added.

However, MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja dragged India’s score to a fighting total. Jadeja played a memorable knock that brought India to the brink of an improbable victory. MS Dhoni and Jadeja had a partnership of 116. However, when Ravindra Jadeja got dismissed, MS Dhoni could not finish off the match. He scored 50 off 72 as India suffered a heartbreaking semi-final defeat, knocking them out of the competition.

They were one of the favourites to win at one point in time. However, things did not go according to play for the Indian side.