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Wriddhiman Saha's exclusion from Team India has come up with it's own fair share of controversies. However, one thing is clear that the management's decision to move on from the services of 37-year-old in order to groom a younger wicketkeeper might not be entirely wrong. Dinesh Karthik, who has played his cricket with Saha over the years, has now given his views on the entire saga.
The 36-year-old was full of praise for Saha, whom he opined to be one of those brilliant, quiet servants of Indian cricket who has done so well over a period of years
"He (Saha) is still one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, by a distance -- I rate him as the best wicketkeeper in the world. He has got great hands, he moves really well... he is a terrific wicketkeeper. And add to the fact, he has a few centuries in international cricket and played some really crucial, important knocks when Team India needed it," DK said in The ICC Review.
Rishabh Pant has pretty much nailed his place in the team: Karthik
However, Karthik admitted that just like MS Dhoni came in all those years ago, Indian cricket has had Rishabh Pant who's come in over the last couple of years and has done really well. "When that happens, Saha has obviously become the second wicketkeeper and he has been travelling with the team and playing the odd match here and there," he added.
Reflecting on the decision of team management to drop Saha, Karthik suggested that he can understand the login behind same. He said, "You can see Rishabh Pant has pretty much nailed his place in the team. So then, you can understand which direction the Indian team is going in where they feel that if it's going to be a second keeper role, then they'll look at somebody younger."
Karthik added that he understands the direction Team India is going with this decision because according to him it's important to groom somebody going ahead, so that they can keep carrying the person along, whenever longer tours are required or even in home games, when two keepers are required these days.