Former Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik has commended Jitesh Sharma for his approach to playing for the national team.

He has been named in the India squad for the Asia Cup 2025 following his outstanding performance 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 jow Jitesh’s performance was affected once he realized he was close to national team selection.

He played several crucial knocks for his team lower down the order, giving the perfect finish to the innings time and again.

Recently, Dinesh Karthik revealed that Jitesh Sharma was never too desperate to play for India but as soon as he realised that he was on the fringes after his terrific performances for Punjab Kings, it affected his performances.

“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,” told Dinesh Karthik.

“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 the guidance of Dinesh Karthik has served as the batting coach of RCB, Jitesh Sharma as the finished as he amassed 261 runs from 11 innings at an average of 37.28 and a strike rate of 176.35.

His best innings came against LSG, where he smashed 85* runs off 33 deliveries helped RCB chase down 228 runs in just 18.4 overs and finish in top two of the points table.

Meanwhile, Jitesh Sharma has last played in January 2024 against Afghanistan and has scored 100 runs from Seven T20Is so far.

However, he has fight up for the wicketkeeper’s slot in the playing Xl during the Asia Cup 2025 as Sanju Samson is already India’s preferred wicketkeeper choice for a long time.

The Asia Cup 2025 is set to begin on September 09 with Afghanistan and Hong Kong will clash in the opener game.

India will begin their Asia Cup campaign against UAE on September 10 at Dubai International Stadium.