Is Shikhar Dhawan’s spot in the Indian T20 team under threat?
India’s flamboyant batsman Shikhar Dhawan has been India’s go-to man and has delivered a plethora of fine performances as an opener in the limited-overs format. Over the past six years, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have established themselves as one of the most successful opening pairs in the history of the T20 game averaging over 35. Recently, however, the dream pairing seems to have soured. The golden Rohit-Shikhar partnership seems more to be more Sharma and less Dhawan.
The left-handed batsman’s place in the Indian T20 team has been under the scanner for a while as he seems to be trapped in the cycle of being consistent and maintaining strike rate. Dhawan seems to be fading away as an ideal opener in the shortest format of the game as he doesn’t score runs as quickly at the top of the order in T20Is as required.
The emergence of KL Rahul
The emergence of KL Rahul as an explosive opening batsman in the Indian Premier League and the India tour of New Zealand has fueled this debate more. There are constant talks regarding the choice of the second opener, who can potentially open alongside Rohit in the shortest format of the game, or to be more specific in the upcoming T20 World Cup which is less than a year away now.
The best year- 2018
Having made his debut in T20I in 2011 against West Indies, it was only in 2016 that Dhawan started to open for India in its “real sense”. In 2016, the batsman had scored 301 runs in 14 T20Is at an average of 25.08 and a strike rate of 117.57. The numbers went on to improve in 2017 and 2018 before going down the previous year. Shikhar had featured in only 6 T20Is in 2017 amassing 127 runs at an average of 25.40 and a strike rate of 138.04. 2018 can be considered as a golden year for the Delhi-born as he smashed 689 runs in 18 games at an average of 40.52 and a strike rate of 147.22 including six half-centuries. That was most by a player in a single calendar year.
The Decline
However, since then there has been a constant decline in Dhawan’s form in T20Is and he had a very mediocre session in 2019. If we talk about Dhawan’s overall T20 stats, the left-hander has scored 1588 runs in 61 games at an average of 28.4 and a strike rate of 128.3. These numbers give an insight on how Dhawan doesn’t seem to be a fit in T20 outfit anymore as his strike rate suggests that he is no more able to hit big shots while his average of below 29 concludes that he is not scoring a lot of runs either.
This can be a cause of worry for the Indian team as a slow start is palatable if you can make up for it by speeding up later on. Unfortunately for Dhawan, his recent knocks have all started slowly, and he has been stopped before he’s able to switch gears. All being said, the stats clearly depict that it’s time for the management and captain to look beyond Dhawan and consider other options as a second opener in the shortest format of the game if they wish to make it big in the upcoming T20 tournaments.
