Dinesh Karthik, once India’s wicketkeeping mainstay before MS Dhoni emerged, never takes his eye off the ball. On Friday, after his 27-ball 55 helped India reach a decent total of 169 in 20 overs against South Africa, Karthik was speaking in an interview with the broadcaster, when he suddenly looked up at the sky and flinched. After taking a second, he resumed: “Sorry, I thought the ball was coming this way.” The video of the incident has gone viral on social media.

Watch what happened – 

After losing wickets at short intervals, India were struggling at 81/4 in the 13th over when Karthik and Hardik Pandya stepped in to revive the Indian innings with a brisk partnership of 65 runs.  

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During the post-match presentation, Karthik attributed his performance to a sense of security and clarity in thought process.

“Just feels good,” he said about the innings. “I am feeling very secure in this set-up. In the last game, things didn’t go according to plan, but I went and expressed myself today.”

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He gave a lot of credit to coach Rahul Dravid.

“Credit to Rahul Dravid; there is a certain sense of calmness. The dressing room is a calm place right now. It is important to learn to embrace pressure. It feels secure and fuzzy. That clarity and the environment environment helped.”

Karthik said he was happy that the series has gone down to the wire.

“It is good to see a bilateral series going down to the final match. To see the pressure being absorbed in the third and fourth games was something we would relish.”

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Karthik’s junior and team’s skipper Rishabh Pant was all praise for both Hardik Pandya and Karthik’s game-changing knock. 

“We talked about execution and playing better cricket and here are the results. Really happy with the way Hardik put up a show. DK went for the kill right away and that gave us the positivity.”