Former India opener Shikhar Dhawan recently opened up about the moment he realised that his days as an international player were numbered. When his fellow opener Ishan Kishan blasted a rollicking double century, the veteran Dhawan sensed that it could spell the end of his career as one of India’s most trusted white-ball performers, especially in the ODI format.
Kishan and Dhawan had teamed up as India’s openers in an ODI against Bangladesh in Chattogram in captain Rohit Sharma’s absence in the final match of the series that the Men in Blue had lost to the Tigers. While Dhawan fell for three in the match, Kishan stormed his way to 210 of 131 balls with 24 fours and 10 sixes. That would prove to be Dhawan’s List A and international appearance.
“I was scoring lots of 50s, I didn’t score a 100 but I scored lots of 70s. When Ishan Kishan scored that 200, my instinct told me, alright boy, this can be the end of your career. An inner voice came to me. And that’s what happened. Then I remember my friends came over to you know, give me that emotional support. They thought that I would be very down. But I was chilling, I was enjoying,” Dhawan told Hindustan Times in an interview, ahead of the launch of his autobiography titled ‘The One’.
‘Gill was creating his own aura’
With the steady rise of Shubman Gill, Dhawan was forced out of India’s ODI set-up in the road to the 2023 ODI World Cup. The 39-year-old said that with Gill’s increasing presence across formats, it was difficult for him to keep up with the competition despite his stellar ODI and ICC tournament record.
“Now there is one angle of seeing it that way. Another angle is that at the time, Shubman Gill was doing very well in T20s and Tests as well. Now I am not in the picture that much. I only come for ODIs. But the other player is doing so well and he is in front of the coaches more. He is creating his own aura or own environment authentically, organically,” Dhawan said.
Dhawan’s T20I career also suffered a setback when he was overlooked for India’s 2021 T20 World Cup squad. Dhawan would later lead a second-string India side in his final T20I series in Sri Lanka.
“I knew that my name was not going to come (2021 T20 World Cup squad). I could sense that thing. It’s not that you are going to be spoon-fed for everything,” Dhawan said. “I didn’t ask anyone why my name didn’t come. Even if I had asked, they were going to have their own perspective on it and I am going to tell my own story. It doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t change anything.”
