England vs India: Shikhar Dhawan vows to comeback stronger at Lord's

His performances in Tests has come under scrutiny and there is also a speculation that his fortunes in the longest format could go the way of his opening partner in ODIs, Rohit Sharma. But Shikhar Dhawan is not yet ready to give up and has vowed to come back strongly after his ordinary performance in the series opener against England in Birmingham that India lost by 31 runs, much owing to their batsmen’s failure.

Dhawan scored 26 (he made a good start with Murali Vijay but couldn’t capitalise) and 13 in the two innings before nicking the ball and was also criticised for his poor performance in fielding as he dropped key catches in England’s second innings.

He also got dismissed twice in four deliveries in the three-day warm-up game against Essex at Chelmsford ahead of the first Test, managing a pair. Even the team management was slammed for leaving out Cheteshwar Pujara from the XI and picking Dhawan who has dubious overseas records in whites.

The 32-year-old batsman, who hit a hundred against Afghanistan in their debut Test in Bengaluru in June, took to Twitter on Sunday to greet his followers on the occasion of Friendship Day. There, he also said that he looked at his own mistakes made in the first Test and vowed to come back stronger in the next game.

Wish you all a very #HappyFriendshipDay.
I know you're all very sad & disappointed with our narrow loss yesterday. I've looked into my own performance, the mistakes I made and I‘ll come back stronger and wiser in the next game. Thank u for all the love & support. 🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/oce5x8XNTH

— Shikhar Dhawan (@SDhawan25) August 5, 2018

Dhawan has been trying to make the mood lighter on a number of times during this tour, perhaps to ease the pressure which is piling up on him over each failure. While he tweeted a photo of him flanked by captain Virat Kohli and Pujara on either side with a rhyming caption; he was also seen posting an adorable family picture on the occasion of the birthday of his wife Ayesha Dhawan. Now, he has posted the tweet on Friendship Day to show that he has not yet given up the fight to make his Test career a memorable one.

Dhawan made a tremendous debut in the longest format by hitting 187 against Australia in Mohali in 2013 but could not keep up the momentum subsequently. He now has 2,192 runs from 32 Tests at an average of 42.98.

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