Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra believes that Shikhar Dhawan should’ve played the Ranji Trophy when he wasn’t in international duty.
The 33-year-old Indian opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan is currently struggling to perform consistently. However, Few months ago, he was one of the top performers for the Indian national cricket team. The left-handed batsman won the Player of the Series award in the Asia Cup 2018. He was the leading run-scorer in that tournament after scoring 342 runs in five innings with an average of 68.40. The opening batsman played an essential role for India to win that tournament.
However, the situation has changed soon as Shikhar Dhawan is now running through a struggling period. Since the Asia Cup 2018, he has scored 376 runs in 15 ODI innings with an average of 26.85. He has scored only 2 half-centuries since the last Asia Cup tournament. In last five ODI innings, the opening batsman failed to cross the 30-run mark.
While the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is coming very near, his form is a crucial factor for the national side. England and Wales will host the tournament from 30th May to 14th July.
While India has left only three more ODIs to play before the World Cup tournament, Aakash Chopra doesn’t feel any drastic changes happening in Shikhar Dhawan’s form before the World Cup.
Aakash Chopra said according to India Today, “There is no denying Dhawan is going through a bad patch but with only three international matches left, I don’t see any drastic changes happening.”
Shikhar Dhawan’s record in multi-nation tournaments is fabulous
Since making his international debut in October 2010, Shikhar Dhawan has played 125 ODIs. With an average of 44.43, the left-handed batsman has scored 5,199 ODI runs.
He is known as one of the great players in the multi-nation tournaments. The left-handed batsman was the leading run-scorer in the 2013 & 2017 ICC Champions Trophy, 2018 Nidahas Trophy and 2018 Asia Cup etc. In the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, he was the leading run-scorer for India.
Observing this fact, Aakash Chopra believes that Shikhar Dhawan will return to the form very soon.
The former Indian opener said, “If he has scored 5000 plus ODI runs, it means that he has been around for a reasonable period of time, seen ups and downs to have scored that many runs. His record in multi-nation tournaments (World Cup, Champions Trophy, Asia Cup) is fabulous, so it could well be a matter of time that he is back in form.”
Shikhar Dhawan’s availability would be helpful for Delhi too
Due to his poor form in the Test cricket, Shikhar Dhawan wasn’t selected for the Test series in the last Australian tour. That four-match Test series ran between 6 December 2018 and 7 January 2019. Aakash Chopra believes that the Delhi batsman should’ve utilised that time by playing Ranji matches. He feels that it would’ve helped the Indian opener as well as the Delhi side too.
Aakash Chopra added, “He exactly didn’t set the stage on fire against West Indies at home and since he was not in Test side against Australia, he could have come back and played Ranji Trophy. It would have helped him as well as our domestic cricket. But that didn’t happen.”
The 2017/18 Ranji Trophy runners-up Delhi hugely disappointed in the 2018/19 Ranji Trophy season. They finished in the last position (eighth position) in the Group B points table.