BackShikhar Dhawan | Man of the moment
Dhawan has followed up a blistering century on Test debut with two ODI hundreds in England, making him India's rising cricketing star
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It was around October. Indian cricket was going through a minor crisis with its opening slot and the newly-appointed selection committee had a few tough decisions to make. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir were going through a phase where neither batsmen looked totally assured about their respective roles, the runs had dried up, and their combination looked out of sorts.
The duo were effectively on notice. In the meanwhile, the new chairman of selectors, Sandeep Patil, and his team quietly set out in search of potential replacements for the out-of-form batsmen. Shikhar Dhawan was identified and shortlisted for the latter half of the home series against Australia, with Murali Vijay being the other candidate.
Today, a belligerent debut Test match ton (at Mohali in March) and two consecutive One Day International (ODI) hundreds later (Champions Trophy in England, 114 against South Africa on 6 June and 102 unbeaten against West Indies on 11 June), Dhawan’s rise in Indian cricket has been confirmed.
Dhawan’s story in Indian cricket is that of a typical domestic cricketer, coming through the ranks, excelling at every level (both age-group and first-class, to an extent the Indian Premier League, or IPL, too) before the big call-up. His initial rise was documented in the ICC Under-19 World Cup, 2003-04, in Bangladesh, where he scored 505 runs in seven matches, including three hundreds (against Scotland, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh). Tarak Sinha, his coach at the famous Sonnet Cricket Club in New Delhi, believes that all Dhawan wanted, even as a young cricketer, was an opportunity to show what he could to.
Since Dhawan’s first-class career started that year, there was a definite sense of inconsistency about it. He was good without being brilliant, patchy at best and in his early years (till about 2009-10), he was always seen as a player who had the requisite talent, but could never live up to it.
Sinha says, “Initially, he was too eager to impress and tried hard to catch people’s attention with his batting, and that’s where he failed. There was also a sense of frustration that came with his performances."
The transformation came around 2009, when Dhawan slowly started realizing his potential as a player—five years after he made his debut—scoring his maiden double-hundred for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy Super League 2009-10. “He started working hard on his game. He was always a one-side of the field player, favoured the off-side and tried to chase deliveries outside off-stump. He knew he had to have an all-round game with a lot of leg-side shots to excel at the international level," says Sinha. “Today, I am happy that he’s a competent player on the leg-side."
An India A tour to England in 2010, where he enriched his credentials, followed and in that year itself, Dhawan got a taste of international cricket when he was handed an ODI debut against Australia at Visakhapatnam. He got out for a duck, but this was more about testing the waters, the leap in the quality of cricket, than being exiled from national colours forever. Four more ODIs followed during India’s post-World Cup tour of the West Indies, and with a fifty to his name, he was on the radar.
Fifties became hundreds, hundreds became bigger hundreds and far from being a patchy one-trick pony as he was perceived to be initially, Dhawan set out to dominate the bowling.
His technique has always been debated in cricketing circles. Dhawan has been known as this batsman who, in the quest for domination, had a tendency to play loose shots. His back-and-across movement was partly missing, the transfer of body weight wasn’t as smooth, resulting in him falling over a lot.
“We had to work on his technique, specifically the transfer of body weight. Earlier, he used to play the shot on the foot rather than trigger towards the ball with a back-and-across movement. Today, the shift is A-class and his technique for now seems faultless," says Sinha.
The other issue he had to overcome was pertaining to his temperament. A naturally aggressive player, it was difficult for Dhawan to calm down at times. Today, he’s happy to take his time, even give the bowler his due, and pull out his aggression later to dominate the bowling. “I am happy with the way he’s playing. He looks settled, mentally strong and that is showing in his performances. I still believe Shikhar’s best is yet to come," Sinha says.
His 187 on Test debut will surely go down as one of the best (and not to forget record-breaking) knocks by an Indian opener in recent times, and rightly so—not just because of the number of runs he made, but the way he went about it. An approach that in many ways is termed “Matthew Hayden-like" was refreshing to see from an Indian opener—domineering, belligerent, unabashed, with the confidence of a man who looked 50 Tests old. In the last match of the Champions Trophy, India have played till now, against Pakistan on Saturday, he scored 48, the team’s highest.
Sinha sums it up: “Aaj kal Test cricket mein khelne ke liye technique or temperament se zyada dil ka hona zaroori hai. Shikhar aisa banda hai, jo hamesha dil se khelte aa raha hai, aur aap dekho, yehi usay kamyabi dilayega (To play Tests, you need heart more than technique or temperament. Shikhar always plays with his heart and you see, this will help him succeed)."
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