Learned dedication, the love he has for the game and knowledge from Sachin Paaji: Shikhar Dhawan

With the emergence of Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the limited overs, Shikhar Dhawan lost his place in the playing XI and subsequently, couldn’t find a place in India’s ODI World Cup squad. Currently, the 38-year-old doesn’t feature in domestic cricket and only plays for Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League. He has seen a lot of ups and downs in his cricketing career, as Dhawan made his ODI debut in 2010 but it was only in 2013 that the southpaw was handed a proper run in the national squad.

Recently, he also led India multiple times in white-ball cricket. In the absence of the senior cricketers, Dhawan used to lead the youngsters but despite so, the veteran opener wasn’t considered for selection. However, the cricketer revealed that he didn’t feel bad about it as it was god’s will. 

Notably, Dhawan shared the dressing room with a lot of legendary cricketers in the form of Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and recently Rahul Dravid, when the latter was appointed as the coach of the Indian Cricket Team. Speaking about his learnings from these four pillars of Indian cricket, Dhawan mentioned that he learnt a lot from Tendulkar, including the dedication he has for the sport.

“Learned dedication, the love he has for the game and knowledge from Sachin Paaji. He used to decipher pretty easily the weight of the willow, which shows his depth of knowledge about the game. He used to know how to make a bat work.. so he was involved that much. He of course taught how to build your innings and hit a century eventually,” Dhawan said in an interview with Karishma Mehta.

Virat’s willpower and zeal is very strong, if he wants to do something, he will do it: Dhawan

Besides, speaking about Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan stated that the star India batter has very strong willpower and aims to achieve every goal of his. He also added that the 35-year-old channelizes his aggression into performance, which is one of the learning lessons for him.

“Virat’s willpower and zeal is very strong, if he wants to do something, he will do it. He channelizes his aggression into performance. When he’s batting, he channelizes his energy.. so (these are the things to learn from him). He always dreamt big. Like when he started his career and was getting out early, he used to remain positive and aim for a century in the next match. Even if he is going through a bad phase, he always remains positive,” Dhawan said.