Shikhar Dhawan is, beyond a scope of doubt, one of the finest and most successful opening batsman to have served the contours of Indian cricket in the modern times.
He is successful, he is popular and above all, well liked.
To be specific, in the post Tendulkar and Ganguly era, at a time were the Indian team was growing in capacity to perform and dominate around Mahendra Singh Dhoni, it was around the batting of names like Dhawan, Sharma and Kohli that the team prospered and reached great heights.
Dhawan’s success was largely attributed to his ability to bring out his A game especially in the mega ICC events.
In the last edition of the one day World Cup, Dhawan made runs at an average of 62 including a ton against Australia. He excelled in the 2017 Champion’s trophy scoring 338 runs striking once again a captivating hundred against Sri Lanka; besides scoring two other fifties.
With the golden touch of timing and the ability to hit along the ground instead of engaging in blind slog hitting, Dhawan brought a sense of elegance and yet, power to the craft of batting up the order.
Even before the likes of young guns KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant broke into the national side, Dhawan with his solid batting was a redoubtable figure in the team we so love.
But ever since 2020 or 2020 onwards, the always smiling and easy going Shikhar Dhawan has found his place in the side under a spot of doubt.
As the next World Cup is right upon us, the big question going around in cricketing circles is whether Dhawan will get a chance to play. There’s little doubt about his past record and ability to perform in high stakes cricket.
Now OneCricket, in their search to find some answers on the Dhawan scenario met up with former Windies batsman turned cricket expert Daren Ganga as part of a conclave they organised in the Caribbean.
Here’s what OneCricket found from one of the known voices of Caribbean cricket on the man who still matters to Indian cricket:
“He’s (Dhawan) a phenomenal player. His stats in ICC tournaments are very impressive. But with all due respect to him, I think India has sufficient young talent to fill that void that he has created by not being around. I’m respectful of what he’s contributed to Indian cricket, but I feel that with the competition, with the young players knocking on the door, he had to make way for them
You think of Shubman Gill, who’s dominated in his short career, and so is Ishan Kishan, who is now grabbing his opportunities at the international level. That is the balancing act that I’m talking about. You still want to have a certain amount of youth athletic ability with young players on your side to be in and around the senior players,” Ganga told the platform.
