Twitter lauds Shikhar Dhawan's scintillating half-century in Cape Town

Shikhar Dhawan has often been criticized time and again for his indifferent form. The left-hander was dropped after failing in the first test match at Cape Town. However, he has surely made amends coming back at the same place for the third One Day International. While Dhawan may struggle to find a place in the playing XI when it comes to the traditional format, he’s an enigma in the 50 over the game.

The dashing opener struck his second consecutive half-century in the series. He was also looking in sublime touch during the first One-Dayer before a confusion with Virat Kohli resulted in a runout. After Rohit Sharma was dismissed for a duck in the very first over, the onus fell upon Dhawan and skipper Kohli to provide India a fierce start.

Dhawan went on to slam a brilliant half-century as he was at his fluent best. Not only did he lit up the stage with his splendor batting, but he also put the pressure straight back on the Proteas bowlers. However, the dashing opener fell short of his century by just 24 runs. He scored 12 boundaries in his fantastic knock of 76 runs from just 63 balls.

His strike rate of above 120 was a clear proof of his batting performance today. Both he and Kohli managed to put up a magnificent 140 run partnership for the second wicket from 133 balls.

He was dismissed by spinner JP Duminy trying to play across the line. He was caught by skipper Aiden Markram as the hosts finally managed to break the partnership which seemed to be running away with the game. Twitter lauded Shikhar Dhawan for his stupendous run in the series so far as well as in today’s game. Some of them were disappointed though that he didn’t go on to score a century.

Here we present to you some of Twitter reactions regarding Dhawan’s knock: