Is Dinesh Karthik drawing curtains on his IPL career?

CHENNAI: "In sport, there are no fairytale endings," said an emotional Dinesh Karthik after RCB's yet another trophy-less IPL season. Reading between the lines, he was probably referring to his own final season in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

As speculation of the veteran wicket-keeper batter's retirement after the end of the season grows, he was given a lap of honour by his teammates after their game against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the IPL Eliminator on Wednesday, which more or less confirmed the 38-year-old's farewell to the IPL.

Introspecting on the Royal Challengers Bangalore's innings this IPL season, Dinesh Karthik said, "Things turned around; winning six out of six felt like, ‘wow! This is going to be the year!’ But in sports, as always, there are no fairytale endings; there is always a hard day, one day that does not go your way. but still should be really proud of the boys," he exclaimed after their loss to RR.

Even though Dinesh hasn't directly addressed talks about his retirement, the league's broadcaster, Jio Cinema, and many franchisees kind of confirmed the news through their social media farewell posts to the former India player.

After not being on the radar of the Indian team, Dinesh Karthik's performance in the IPL 2022 season for RCB earned him a recall to the T20 World Cup, which incidentally happened to be his last time donning national colours.

In his IPL career, the cricketer has scored 4,842 runs, 22 fifties, 145 catches, and 37 stumpings in the 257 matches he played for six franchises over 17 seasons.