Dinesh Karthik's Lucky Shirt Ritual Powers India Ahead of T20 WC Final

Sharing a video on X with the caption, "The shirt's pressed. The vibes are set. Now it's over to the boys", Karthik said, "The Indian team has qualified for the finals. Now players will start practising, analysts will start discussions and planning, but what is my role? Simple. Iron the shirt."

The 40-year-old has started this trend of pressing his shirt during the 2024 edition, and India won the final. He did the same in the Champions Trophy 2025 final, the Asia Cup 2025 final, the Women's World Cup 2025 final, the WPL 2026 final and India emerged victorious on each occasion.

The trend has created a buzz on social media, with fans repeatedly urging Karthik to iron his shirt before must-win league stage games as well. However, the former wicketkeeper-batter has maintained that the ritual is reserved strictly for finals.

"I started doing this as fun, but people started asking me to iron the shirt during the league stage matches. People were asking me to iron the shirt for the West Indies game and then before the semi-final against England," said Karthik.

Going into the final, India are chasing a few firsts - first to defend a T20 World Cup title, first host team to win the T20 World Cup and the first to three T20 World Cup championships. For New Zealand, the biggest challenges will be how to keep the star-studded Indian batting line-up relatively quiet and how to deal with Jasprit Bumrah's unerring line and length.

India and New Zealand took contrasting paths to the final; they entered the contest on the back of strong batting performances in the semi-final. New Zealand lost to South Africa in the group stage and to England in the Super Eights, but were dominant in the final four. After restricting the Proteas to 169/8, New Zealand raced to a nine-wicket win in 12.5 overs, courtesy of a stunning 33-ball hundred by Finn Allen, the fastest in T20 World Cups.

Meanwhile, for India, who were perfect in the group stage, the only blip was the loss to South Africa in the opening Super Eight contest. The semi-final against England was a high-scoring thriller, with India piling on 253/7 and England falling just seven runs short.

In their head-to-head clashes, history may favour New Zealand, but form is with India. The Black Caps have not lost a match to India in the T20 World Cup, having scored victories in 2007, 2016 and 2021. However, the host nation was dominant in their recent T20I series in India, with a comfortable 4-1 win.

Squads:

New Zealand Squad: Tim Seifert(w), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Mitchell Santner(c), Cole McConchie, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Devon Conway, Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi, Jacob Duffy.

India Squad: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson(w), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav.

- ANI