Dinesh Karthik names favourite batting partner in KKR team and it is NOT Shubman Gill

With just two days left to go before the start of the Indian Premier League's 2021 season, India's veteran wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik took to Twitter to host a personalised Q&A session with his fans. Among the most popular cricketers in the country, DK boasts a massive 1.3 million followers on the microblogging site. One way the current Kolkata Knight Riders vice-captain keeps the masses entertained is by regularly interacting with them.

DK's unlikely batting partner of choice

Looking to kill some time in quarantine ahead of the IPL, former KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik asked fans to hit him up with some questions on Twitter, writing: "Before the #IPL2021 begins, let's have a round of #AskDK.... let's play!". Within minutes, the post —which now has 14.3k likes and 660 retweets — had garnered a number of interesting responses from the 35-year-old's followers. Among the many questions DK chose to answer, one was from user @tagore_pfficial who asked him who his favourite batting partner in the IPL was.

The Tweet, which read "Who is Fav Partner in Ipl #KKR #AskDK," seems to have caught Karthik's eyes, eliciting a quick reply complete with an explanation. Skipping over a long line of players in the KKR squad, DK replied to the user saying that his favourite person to bat with while in the middle was none other than Eoin Morgan — the England national team captain and the man who took over the captaincy of the KKR squad after DK stepped down halfway through the last season. Having missed out on a playoffs spot by a matter of just a few decimals on their net run rate, KKR will once again be led by Morgan this season. 

KKR IPL 2021 schedule

Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik and their KKR team 2021 will go head go with a formidable opponent in Sunrisers Hyderabad for their opening match of IPL 2021. The match is scheduled to be played on Sunday, April 11 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The KKR vs SRH game will get underway at 7:30 PM (IST). The KKR team 2021 will play their first three matches in Chennai, followed by two in Mumbai, four in Ahmedabad and the final five games in Bengaluru. Here is the full KKR IPL 2021 schedule:

KKR team 2021

KKR squad players retained: Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Tim Seifert.

KKR players bought at IPL 2021 auction: Harbhajan Singh (₹2 crores), Shakib-al-Hasan (₹3.2 crores),  Ben Cutting (₹75 lakh), Karun Nair (₹50 lakh), Pawan Negi (₹50 lakh), Sheldon Jackson (₹20 lakh), Venkatesh Iyer (₹20 lakh) and Vaibhav Arora (₹20 lakh)

Image Credits: BCCI website