Was always told I was going to bat at No.7 in 2019 World Cup, reveals Dinesh Karthik

And while MS Dhoni was expected to walk in at No.5 to arrest the flow of wickets, the team management dropped a bombshell by instead sending Dinesh Karthik up the order. Karthik did do the job he was told to - stop the collapse - as he batted out 25 balls, but eventually, he perished thanks to a blinder of a catch from Jimmy Neesham.

Speaking to Harsha Bhogle about the semi-final encounter, Karthik has now revealed that he was genuinely surprised by the promotion and added that lack of match practice for the middle-order kind of played its role in the downfall of the Men in Blue on that day.

"But they didn't expect something like that to happen because we were going pretty strong in the tournament. Rohit was batting so well, you always have Virat, Shikhar had done well till he left. The middle order typically didn't get enough opportunities to bat, and that is one of the harder ones you know. When the middle order doesn't get to bat and suddenly are pushed into a big game like this and thrust into such a situation.”

"Throughout the tournament it was pretty clear that I was going to bat below Dhoni at number seven. I had done that really well in the past. In Australia we'd finished games, in New Zealand we'd finished games. I had not batted at number five for a couple of years or more. Here I got the opportunity, I went and did the job that was asked of me for the team, which was to arrest wickets."