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'He won many tournaments. If his career ends in this fashion…': Ex-pacer on India ODI squad for Sri Lanka series
Did Shikhar Dhawan deserve a better end to his career? Former India pacer Dodda Ganesh certainly thinks so. The former right-arm medium pacer took to social media after India's ODI and T20I squads for the Sri Lanka series were announced to call Dhawan's absence "really unfortunate".
India played 24 ODIs this year. Shikhar Dhawan featured in 22 of those - the most by any Indian player. He also captained India in 9 ODIs including three matches in West Indies and New Zealand. He scored 688 runs in 202. Only Shreyas Iyer has scored more ODI runs (724) among all Indian batters during this period. Despite all this, Dhawan was unceremoniously shown the door, or so it seems. The outgoing selection committee, which worked on an extension, did not include Dhawan in the India squad for the three-match home series against Sri Lanka starting January 10. The press release did not mention the reason for Dhawan's exclusion but one can say with certainty that the workload management excuse does not work with Dhawan, as the opener has been playing only one format since late 2021. Does that mean it is the end of the road for Dhawan?
With Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli back to being at the forefront in the ODIs after mostly giving this format a miss in 2022 to focus on the T20 World Cup, it was always going to be difficult for Dhawan to hold on to his spot in the XI. His dwindling strike rate of 75 in the last year or so also did not go in his favour. To make matters worse, Shubman Gill had his best year in international cricket while opening the batting in ODIs in 2022. Gill could not find a place in the ODI squad for the Bangladesh series, which raised eyebrows but the team management went with Dhawan's experience. But after the veteran cricketer failed to notch up a noteworthy contribution in any of those matches, it appears that they have made up their minds about going forward with Gill.
Dhawan has been a stalwart for India particularly in ODIs for the last 9-10 years. After Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir's heydays, it was the new opening pair of Dhawan and Rohit that won India matches across the globe. Very few openers have a better average (44.11) and strike rate (91.35) than Dhawan in ODIs in the last decade, which gives rise to the question, did Shikhar Dhawan deserve a better end to his career?
Former India pacer Dodda Ganesh certainly thinks so. The former right-arm medium pacer took to social media after India's ODI and T20I squads for the Sri Lanka series were announced to call Dhawan's absence "really unfortunate".
"Does this mean it’s the end of the road for Shikhar Dhawan as an international cricketer? He was a mighty-fine ODI batter and won India many a games and tournaments. It’s really unfortunate if his career ends in this fashion," he tweeted.
India are set to get a new selection committee at the start of 2023 which means there is still a chance for Dhawan to get back into the side but in order to do that, he will need to get out of his comfort zone and perhaps change his style of batting. Will he be able to do that? One thing is for certain, he won't give up.
