The Tao Of Shikhar

A batsman who’s met adversity and success in almost equal measure, Shikhar Dhawan has charted his own unique trajectory as a player and as a man.

- Vimal Kumar

IT SEEMS unbelievable that Shikhar Dhawan started his ODI career in 2010 with a duck, and could score just one 50 in his first five matches for India. And that he was immediately dropped from the team. But when he made another entry in 2013, he scored back-to-back centuries.

The 32-year-old Dhawan has now become a part of the modern triumvirate of Indian cricket in the shorter formats of the game. Unlike his One-Day International career, the Delhi player had a dream debut in Test cricket with a sparkling 187 against the Australians. Yet, in the last half-decade, it’s Test cricket in which he is still trying his best to cement his place—while he is on his way to becoming one of the all-time greats for India in ODIs. Dhawan played one Test match on the recent tour of South Africa and was dropped, perhaps unfairly.

Yet, once the ODIs came, he was in his element. As the second-highest run-getter in the six-match ODI series, he was second only to the extraordinarily successful skipper, Virat Kohli. However, in the three-match T20 series, no one came close to his run tally—Dhawan was the highest run-getter in the slam-bang format of the game.

“I personally wanted to do very well in South Africa. I had a very bad series in 2013, and I desperately wanted to prove that I could conquer the challenging conditions of South Africa,” says Dhawan.