Shikhar Dhawan: From dawn and still on

Changes happen & in professional cricket, a shot is often enough to change the perspection of one’s game, the way to look at it, the way to approach it, the way to correct a mistake & the way ahead.

For instance, Dhawan’s was the one played in a Ranji Trophy match in 2010 in the Roshanara ground in delhi on a chilly December morning against the Railways. Although its cruel to single out his failure as the main reason for Delhi not being able to chase down a tiny-winy total of 136, a reckless shot did triger a middle order collapse.

“A new Dhawan was born that day.”

With an aggregate of 486 in 11 Ranji innings until then, Dhawan was bound to receive a lot of flak for the awful shot & he did. In the 2011-12 season he made a little impact in Ranji innings totalling 296 runs in 10 innings but his knocks of 177 & 155 against Rajasthan in Jaipur in the Irani Cup match kept him in the limelight.

“One would have thought he was not cut out for the big league after such a poor tour,” says Madan Sharma after the sloppy Windies tour under Suresh Raina, “But Shikhar came back hungrier, convinced that he knew what he had to do next. That was the turning point. He kept telling everybody that he wanted to play longer for India. He realized the IPL was a platform but the real clincher would be tall scores in domestic cricket.”

He should have known nothing but scoring loads and loads of runs will help his case of living his dreams. He had no choice but to work harder. After the early stardom he was down to earth feeling the pain of getting neglected. He had to move on. Apart from the man himself none would know the feelings of fellow U 19 team mates marching ahead with him lurking behind scratching his head in frustration.

“He started coming to nets on time, fussed over his batting, started asking questions he had done never before. He would ask about wrist positions & front foot play. He decided to work on his pet shots, like the cut & the drive. And he was very smart. With the advice he got, he knew what to reject & what to incorporate. He consciously cut out the tendency to waft at deliveries when set. At 27, these are his best years as a batsman & he knows he must make them count.”

Anybody else would have given up. Shikhar didn’t. He had the legendary openers representing the national team. He didn’t. He even lost his place in India A team to various other aspirants like Pujara,Uthappa, Gambhir, Rahane, Parthiv Patel and even Praveen kumar. He didn’t. He marched & marched & marched like a blinker tied driving horse. Didn’t look anywhere but his path. Well. That’s what you call determination.

So, who is this new Dhawan? The guy who is striking gold whenever he comes out with his bat?

He is “pure entertainment” as Navjot Singh Sidhu might have liked to point out.

You ask his senior Delhi teammate Akash Chopra & he will explain, “He has learnt to put a price on his wicket. Not that he has become a good batsman overnight. He has always been a talented batsman. Only problem was he never put a price on his wicket. He used to get out playing rash shots.”

He is not a man of many words. He will give the press the same reassuring smile he gives an opposition bowler on field. Maybe that is why his bat is so talkative, after all. It has to do the talking for two people at a time. But, well, who’s complaining?

15 years back, a twelve year old Dhawan showed up at his now-mentor-then-coach Tarak Sinha’s Sonnet Cricket Club in Delhi following the footsteps of his cousin. “He soon rose through the age-groups making a name for himself as a bold left-hander. He was essentially a stroke maker & always played that way.” Sinha maintains. So the flamboyance is nothing new.

There is something about his batting. You cant stop with the Viru comparisons & hell, he is Sehwag-esque. But there is more. Not a dull moment on crease. Between those resounding flicks & now-slowly-gaining-attention-of-the-cricket-world-and-beyond drives through the covers. My, don’t they leave you spellbound? Powerfully silky to sum it up. Then there is a swift paddle behind fine leg & an easy-peasy squeeze to point & you can go on & on & on.

Guy has a fat book of shots & I’m afraid it covers almost all in the buisness. And the positivity in his game, the way he goes about the task like an eagle to the sky, he leaves you wondering if any doubt, any concern nag him on the striker’s end. He plays each ball with such clarity & maximum intent & topped with some brutal yet crisp finesse that even when there maybe periods of measured scoring, he doesnt look laboured. Keeping up with it, always. And he does have the legs to accompany the rabbitish trio of Virat, Raina & Dhoni when it comes to running between the wickets, at 27. Also, on the viewer, a Dhawan innings doesn’t grate.

As Vijay Dahiya says, “Only those desperate to do well find luck come their way.”

At almost 28, he is anything but a rookie who has been around in the domestic circuit for 9 long years. But something has happened in the last few months (apart from wedding his long time kickboxer half Oz-half Bong girlfriend Aesha Mukherjee) that has helped him crack the code, finally.

He walked into the Indian Team & has been talking in hundreds since.

It took nearly a decade for the schoolboy with dazzling shots and free stroke play to overcome his fellow openers to live his dream of donning the blue. The school boy is at it again. The same calculated aggression. The same ravishing stroke play. This time with a big moustache though.