IPL 2021: Rishabh Pant nearly knocks out Dinesh Karthik, he has a hilarious take on the incident

The afternoon IPL fixture between Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders on September 28 had a hysterical moment during the first innings when DC skipper Rishabh Pant nearly knocked out KKR wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik while attempting to deflect the ball from hitting the stumps.

On the first delivery of the 17th over, Pant slashed hard at a Varun Chakravarthy delivery but failed to middle it, and instead nearly bottom-edged it towards his stumps. Reacting instinctively, Pant swung his bat hard to stop the ball from knocking his stumps, and in the process almost ended up smashing his bat on Karthik’s helmet, who tumbled away just at the right time to avoid what could have been a dangerously painful blow on his head.

Karthik didn’t look amused initially, although Pant immediately apologized for the unintentional error, fist-bumping and patting Karthik before the proceedings were carried on. On Wednesday, Karthik lightheartedly took to his Twitter to share a paused frame of the event where Pant seems to be putting his bat on Karthik’s neck as if it were a knife. “Caption This!”, the senior wicketkeeper wrote.

Caption This! pic.twitter.com/bxCGWaNMal

— DK (@DineshKarthik) September 29, 2021

While the Pant-Karthik episode ended in good spirits, a few other happenings from the encounter did not as much. Tempers flared during the fixture as during the final over DC’s innings when KKR pacer Tim Southee had a go at Ravichandran Ashwin after dismissing him. The moment heated up between the two before Eoin Morgan joined the discussion, too. However, Karthik intervened and stopped a rather animated Ashwin from advancing towards Morgan.

Later in a virtual conference held after the game, Karthik explained that the event occurred on the last ball of the penultimate over, when Capitals ran an extra run off an overthrow deflected off Pant at the non-striker’s end, led to the altercation.

“Rahul Tripathi threw the ball, it hit Rishabh Pant, and then ricocheted,” Karthik said. “And Ashwin called for it and they started to run. I don’t think Morgan appreciates that. I think he’s somebody who, when the ball hits the batsman or the bat, he expects them not to run in the spirit of cricket.

“Again, it’s a very grey area, it’s a very interesting topic. I have my own opinion on it but at the moment I’ll just say I’m happy I played peacemaker and things have come to a good standstill right now,” Karthik said.

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