Dinesh Karthik

Some Lesser Known Facts About Dinesh Karthik

• Dinesh was born into a Tamil Brahmin family with a sporting background as his father was a first-division cricketer for Chennai.

• During his childhood, he and his family lived in Kuwait for some years where he started playing cricket by watching English County cricket matches on TV.

• He was coached by former Indian cricketer, Robin Singh. 

• On his ODI debut in 2004 vs England, he dropped Michael Vaughan, but later did a fabulous stumping to dismiss him.

• Due to his inconsistent performance in wicket-keeping and batting, he was replaced by MS Dhoni at the end of 2004.

• Cricketer Mulari Vijay is married to his Ex-wife Nikita.

• His second wife, Dipika Pallikal is an Indian Squash Champion. 

• He first met his second wife, Dipika Rebecca Pallikal at the Chennai marathon in 2008, through their common gym trainer, Shankar Basu, of ‘Maverick Gym,’ Chennai.

• He used to wear #19 jersey for India which was Rahul Dravid‘s jersey number before. 

• He is a huge fan of the sports cars.

• He has played for many IPL teams, like Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Daredevils, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Lions, and Kolkata Knight Riders.

• He was going through a rough patch in the late 2015 and early 2016, and was desperate for something to get his international cricket career back on track. During this period, he shared about his struggle with his friend Abhishek Nayar, a Mumbai cricketer. Nayar suggested Karthik to join him in his “House of Pain”, a room in Nayar’s Mumbai residence, having a small area, and lack of facilities, especially for a person like Karthik who was used to of living a luxurious life. Over there, Nayar and Karthik did batting visualization techniques, meditation, and rigourous training in the afternoons, which not only transformed Karthik’s batting technique, but also his mental strength to make a strong comeback on the cricketing field. 

• For the first time in his IPL career, he captained Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 11 (2018), in place of Gautam Gambhir. 

• Daniel Vettori once gifted him his award motorbike during an IPL season.

• He is an avid dog lover. 

• On 18 March 2018, he hit a six off the last ball to give India a memorable victory over Bangladesh in the finals of the Nidahas Trophy T20 tri-series.

• After the eliminator match between the RCB and Rajasthan Royals in the 2024 IPL, he received a guard of honour from his teammates in Ahmedabad. IPL broadcaster JioCinema later confirmed the news of his retirement on social media.