It will have to take some incredible amount of turn of events for anyone to envisage that Shikhar Dhawan could return to India’s T20 team and even open alongside skipper Rohit Sharma at the T20 World Cup later in the year in Australia.
Injuries, unavailability due to covid-19 or any other reason, drastic drop in form of backup openers such as Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sanju Samson – all of which is entirely possible in these times to pave the way for 36-year-old Dhawan to play in the T20 World Cup directly. For there is no doubt over his quality and experience to slot him straightaway into India’s line-up.
Most openers for India in an year (men’s T20I):
7* – in 2022
7 – in 2021
6 – in 2012
6 – in 2011The record of 2011 & 2012 gets broken in 2021 & 2022. Ten years apart.#WIvIND
— Kausthub Gudipati (@kaustats) July 29, 2022
It is not to forget that India have tried as many as 7 different openers – 6 other than Rohit Sharma – in T20Is 2022. And the one who is the first-choice designated opener, KL Rahul, hasn’t even played a single T20I match this year first due to rest and then due to injuries and illness.
Here are 3 reasons why Shikhar Dhawan could still make a comeback into India’s T20 World Cup team:
Experience
There’s no substitute for experience or that nobody can take it away from a player. 36-year-old Dhawan has seen it all in international cricket having had success and failures in all the three formats.
Diving deep into this experience aspect – Dhawan has attained plenty of success in Australian conditions in limited-overs cricket: in 9 T20Is in Australia, where the T20 World Cup will be played, Dhawan has terrific numbers: average of 33 and strike rate of 153 and has notched up 2 fifties in 8 T20I innings there.
In ODIs in Australia, Dhawan has been excellent: average of 39 in 21 ODI matches, having struck 2 centuries and 4 fifties.
Consistency
Now coming to the key part that goes in Dhawan’s favour but has seemingly been ignored by the national selectors and management: Dhawan’s IPL consistency.
Whether he’s in the national team or not, whether he has been hailed or criticised – Dhawan just keeps sacking up runs in the IPL: he has scored more than 450 runs in each IPL season since 2016, and surprisingly, it was during this time that he was dropped from India’s T20I team.
Great equation with Rohit Sharma
Ever since they were teamed up as openers in 2013, Dhawan and Sharma have achieved immense success together as openers in limited-overs cricket. They have great on-field and off-the-field equation and understand each other very well.
Sharma is in fact someone who has been involved in a lot of runouts over the course of his career, but with Dhawan, the duo just click nicely because of the understanding developed between them by the years of experience batting together at the top.
