I am happy to see Dinesh Karthik playing for India and doing well. It also feels a little strange; I distinctly remember seeing him start his cricket as a young boy -- he was a young boy, and I was too, though a couple of years older! As a sixth standard boy, he was learning to wield the willow at K. Chandrashekar Rao's (a former Andhra Ranji player) summer cricket camp, when I first saw him. I was also attending the camp, hoping to hone my skills during the summer. I remember that I noticed him not for his batting or his keeping, but because he was chucking while trying to bowl! He subsequently took to wicketkeeping. He batted decently then but I do not remember noticing anything special. In fact, he was the twelfth man for one of the matches that we played. It amuses me to think I must have been one of his first captains, for I captained that game!

Within the next couple of years, my serious connections with TNCA league and competitive cricket were severed. When I had returned from BITS at the end of my first semester, I had been to the St. Bedes ground to watch my brother play his State selection match. Dinesh Karthik was also playing the match, and he looked to be in a totally different league in that match. He hammered a quickfire century in that match. What struck me instantly was that he handled everyone with consummate aplomb. It looked like he was having a net session out in the middle. He exhibited amazing top-hand control and was controlling his half-flicked on-drives through between mid-on and mid-wicket beautifully with his top-hand. He did not hit a single ball in the air in that innings. I went up to him to tell him what I thought of that innings, and I was surprised that he recognised me after five years! I remember remarking to my brother that some of those shots reminded me of Gavaskar (not Rohan, of course). My brother told me that he was not as good as I had thought him to be. I did not totally disregard the statement, because I will not deny having seen better players playing for the state. Tamil Nadu has never faced a dearth of talent. There were really classy players in the Under-16 and Under-19 levels -- one Vikram Kumar, a compact left-hand bat and a classy wicket-keeper, comes to mind immediately -- and it has bothered me to date that few of these players have made it to the big league. The fact that Dinesh Karthik is the only one to have made the transformation stands testimony for his solid temperament and mental strength and equanimity.

When I watched him on TV strike those backfoot off-drives off the South African pacemen with panache in the Under-19 World Cup last year, I thought he played those shots like Tendulkar! I had a hunch that he would make it to the Indian team. But, frankly, I never expected it to happen so soon. I hope he does not get the stepmotherly treatment that has been impartially meted out to all the good Tamil Nadu players, of the likes of Hemang Badani, L Balaji and Sadagopan Ramesh.

I wish I had seen his reverse-sweep off Ontong and straight drive off Pollock, for which Cricinfo had only generous praise. Seeing a person who once played with me stand up to the South African bowlers with answers to the challenges posed by them would have made my day.