'He was never someone desperate to play for India before': Dinesh Karthik lauds youngster ahead of Asia Cup 2025

Former Indian cricket player Dinesh Karthik has commended Jitesh Sharma for his approach to playing for the national team. Jitesh has returned to the Indian squad following his outstanding performances for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their successful IPL 2025 campaign.Jitesh demonstrated his finishing abilities with several important innings in the lower order for RCB. Karthik observed how Jitesh's performance was affected once he realized he was close to national team selection."He was never someone who was desperate to play for India. And he was very free and he went about playing very confidently for Punjab Kings, and then made it to the Indian team. And then he knew that he was on the fringes. That's when he became desperate. That kind of filtered into his performances," Karthik told Cricbuzz.Karthik discussed his role in helping Jitesh develop as a finisher for RCB."What he wanted to work on was how do I finish a game? How do I get the team to above par? So he was playing a lot of cameos, never knowing how to get that big innings that was required to win a game or take the team far in the first innings. I kind of know what it takes to do that. With the skills he had, there was so much potential that I just needed to unlock it," he added.Under Karthik's guidance as RCB's batting coach, Jitesh excelled in his role. He scored 261 runs in 11 innings, maintaining an average of 37.28 and a strike rate of 176.35.His most notable performance came against LSG, where his unbeaten 85 off 33 balls helped RCB successfully chase 228 runs in 18.4 overs. This victory secured RCB's position in the top two of the points table.Jitesh's last appearance for India was in January 2024 against Afghanistan. He has accumulated 100 runs in seven T20 internationals.He faces competition for the wicketkeeper position in the upcoming Asia Cup 2025, as Sanju Samson remains India's preferred choice behind the stumps.India squad for Asia Cup 2025: Surya Kumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (WK), Harshit Rana, Rinku SinghStandby players: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel