When Shikhar Dhawan was with the Hyderabad Sunrisers, he was David Warner’s partner. Then even after moving to the capitals of Delhi, he was quite happy to be second fiddle to players like Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant. Now, with Pant injured and Shaw struggling, Dhawan has become the Capitals’ top enforcer at IPL 2020.
Dhawan has always had the shots, but he has been a touch too conservative in the past. However, this season he has dared to take greater risks and the refreshing new approach rewarded him with his first T20 century in his 265 innings.
Deepak Chahar got the new ball to hold onto the field and dismissed Prithvi Shaw for a duck even as the Capitals faced a 180 chase. Shreyas Iyer barely hit at 100. However, Dhawan moved across the field regularly, fabricating his own angles , and he hit nearly 175. Sure, he was pardoned four times, but that didn’t stop him from taking chances.
He walked up to Sam Curran and even though he wasn’t close to throwing the ball, he checked his loft and threw it over his head for four. He then also approached Shardul Thakur, but the closer changed his lines wider. Dhawan still reached out to catch the ball and cut it by four. Immediately after being brought down by Chahar in the outfield, he used his feet and cut another opportunity past Shane Watson at the third man short for four.
Other starters like Shubman Gill and KL Rahul have started too slow on the power play, leaving the middle order with a lot to do, but formerly an anchor Dhawan has broken away from this group. Dhawan has scored nearly 134.25 in the first six overs; only Quinton de Kock and Mayank Agarwal have a better hit rate among hitters who have faced at least 100 balls in the power play this season.
It is that strike company that has helped Dhawan prosper in this IPL and even thwarted MS Dhoni’s better laid plans on Saturday. When the Super Kings captain tried to control the game in the middle over with his spinners, he first knocked Ravindra Jadeja out of attack. He then went after Karn Sharma, sending both his legbreak stock and wrong’un to the limits. Then Iyer holed, as did Marcus Stoinis and Carey, but Dhawan kept pinging the limit, making sure that the interest rate was always within reach of the capitals.
When Sharma returned to the attack, Dhawan fell back and disdainfully shoveled him between the medium deep and the wide long. This wasn’t exactly the Sharjah track where teams had scored more than 200 points for fun in the first half of the tournament, but the power of Dhawan might have fooled you into believing it was the same old Sharjah with more points. In total he hit 14 fours and 1 six, and faced only 10 points from 58 balls. And according to ball-for-ball data from ESPNcricinfo, he defended only one ball.
” [It’s] special. I have played for 13 years and this is the first time I have a hundred, so it is a special moment, “Dhawan told host station Star Sports in the post-match presentation. I keep my positive mindset. I don’t think about doing this and that. Of course, I have few tools in terms of strategies, if it is a slow wicket what I will do and what I will make the pitcher do too. So those things … I implement those things while hitting. I played bravely, not afraid to go out. “
Dhawan now has over three fifty points in his last three innings at all three of the United Arab Emirates. Watch out for your fearless bowling launchers.
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