India's Shikhar Dhawan problem is proving hard to solve

Remember the summer of 2013? India travelled to England for the Champions Trophy under an IPL spot-fixing cloud. The team wasn’t expected to compete but Shikhar Dhawan had other ideas. He smacked a fluent 114 against South Africa and then followed it up with 102* against West Indies. [caption id=“attachment_2063139” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Shikhar Dhawan. AP[/caption] That was followed by 48 against Pakistan and 68 versus Sri Lanka. Dhawan ended the tournament with 363 runs from five matches at an average of 90.75. India won the title and Dhawan was named man-of-the-tournament. It looked like India had found a swashbuckling, free-hitting opener who could set-up and win games in foreign conditions. That now seems like a lifetime ago. Statistically, Dhawan’s figures still look good. Over his last ten ODI innings, he has one hundred and four fifties and averages 57.55 - higher than his career-average of 43.59. But read beneath the top-layer of these figures and you will find a story dictated by conditions. In six innings at home, Dhawan has scored 387 runs at 64.50, with a hundred and three fifties. In four innings overseas, he has scored 131 runs and at an average of 32.75, with 97 coming in a single knock at Birmingham. Dhawan’s career displays a similar trend. He averages 55.33 at home from 16 ODIs since his debut in 2010. Outside the subcontinent though, Dhawan averages 36.67 from 31 ODIs. That is still not terrible but there has been a marked drop off since the Champions Trophy. Leaving out the tour of Zimbabwe in 2013, Dhawan has scored just 386 runs at an average of 24.12 from 17 ODI innings in the West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia, He has managed only two half-centuries against those teams, the one in Birmingham and against West Indies at Port of Spain in July 2013. “Off-late Shikhar has been a bit patchy, and that is perhaps to do with doubts about where his off-stump is,” former Australia allrounder Tom Moody said. “In overseas conditions you need to be very sure of that. But despite this, he is someone to be persisted with. He is someone who can take the game away from the opposition very quickly and you need such players in Australia and New Zealand. It is important that he shouldn’t lose his free-style hitting approach.” This faith shown in him by Moody, who is also his SunRisers Hyderabad coach, finds strong resonance within the Indian team management. Over roughly the last 13 months, Dhawan’s place as opener has been unchallenged in ODIs while Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane are still battling it out to be his partner. The worry for India is with the World Cup squad set in stone, they don’t have a replacement. Dhawan doesn’t bat anywhere else in the order. The only possible alternative is for Rahane and Rohit to open, with Ambati Rayudu batting in the middle-order. There is still time for Dhawan to find form though. India has two matches remaining in the Tri-series, and potentially one more if they make the final. Then there are two warm-up games before the World Cup and seven Pool B matches in which India can risk carrying an underperforming player because the tournament will only heat up at the quarter-final stage. That is a total of 11 innings for Dhawan to pay back the faith shown in him by MS Dhoni, Ravi Shastri and Duncan Fletcher. “Sometimes when you are not scoring runs, the best thing to do is just go out and express yourself,” Dhoni said after Dhawan scored one in India’s nine-wicket loss to England in Brisbane. “That’s what Adam Gilchrist used to do very well. When he was slightly out of form, he used to play his shots. But when he was totally out of form, he would play his shots from the very first ball. It often helps, not thinking too much, just watching the ball and playing your shots,” “Will you give this Gilchrist-advice to Dhawan ahead of the next match?” I asked Dhoni. “Maybe I will, and maybe it will work,” Dhoni said.