“Everybody thought he is the big deal” – Dinesh Karthik names who was the likely successor of Sachin Tendulkar

Indian cricket team’s wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Karthik has revealed who was thought to be the successor of the great and the icon of Indian cricket Sachin Tendulkar. Karthik feels that there were a lot of expectations from him, but his development in Test cricket was really slow.

It was the year 2013 when the legend, the icon and the God of Cricket Sachin Tendulkar bowed out of his International career after playing for India for a long 24-years. It was the home Test series against West Indies which was the very last one time we saw Tendulkar wear Indian colours.

Kolkata’s Eden Gardens and Mumbai Wankhede Stadium were selected as the venue for both the matches. That series, even though there were many star players in the team, but people just talked about the great only throughout the series.

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Sachin scored only 10 runs in the match in Kolkata which India won by an innings. But, in the 2nd match, he added a strong 74 runs which also India won by an innings. In that same match, Cheteshwar Pujara scored a century but, no one were talking about that but Sachin Tendulkar.

But, once he retired, the question, who will fill in for him. Going back to the first match in Kolkata, while it was Tendulkar’s last test series, it was a first series for Rohit Sharma. He scored a brilliant 177 runs in his first inning. He scored another century in Mumbai too. People thought we have found Sachin’s rightful successor, but thereafter, with Kohli, Pujara and Rahane in the middle-order for Team India, Rohit’s career fell flat.

He was getting opportunities to play only here and there, but he made a solid comeback and has currently cemented his place in the Indian team as a opener.

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Talking about Rohit Sharma, Indian wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Karthik revealed that there were a lot of hope from Rohit Sharma, but his development in Test cricket was slow.

“I don’t think there have been many who’ve had a start as successful as Rohit in Test cricket from an Indian point of view. In his first two matches, he got hundreds… and then everybody thought this is it – he is the big deal and the fact that Sachin is retiring from Test cricket, he is the one who is going to answer all those questions for us. But life and sport as it turns out is never exactly what you think it is and there were a lot of curve balls thrown at Rohit over the period of time,” Karthik said to Cricbuzz.

Tasirul Momin: