The Indian selectors made some surprising calls when they picked up the squad for the World T20 and one of these was the omission of opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan. The left-handed batsman is now putting some more pressure on the selectors with the way he is batting in the ongoing Indian Premier League.
Dhawan has notched up more than 490 runs in 13 matches that he has played for Delhi Capitals and unleashed another masterclass on Monday when he took on CSK’s Deepak Chahar in one of the overs during the 137-run chase against the MS Dhoni-led side in Dubai.
The opening batsman gathered 21 runs in the fifth over of the innings that was being bowled by Chahar. More than the runs, it was about the variety of strokes that caught everyone’s eye.
He came down the track on the first ball that was bowled full, outside off and played it over mid-on for a maximum and followed it with a four towards the backward square region.
The left-hander then played a late-cut on the back of the length delivery to collect another boundary while charged down to smoke the fourth ball over long off for a maximum. The penultimate ball was a dot delivery while Dhawan took an easy single towards the long on the last ball.
Batting first, CSK managed to put 136/5 in 20 overs after riding on Ambati Rayudu’s unbeaten 43-ball 55 during the course. Axar Patel scalped a couple of wickets for DC at the cost of 18 runs in 4 overs while Ravichandran Ashwin and Kagiso Rabada also returned with impressive figures.
Ashwin picked up a wicket for 20 runs in his 4 overs while Rabada didn’t get any wickets but bowled an economic spell to return with figures of 0/21 in 4 overs.
The BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal has cleared that there will be no changes in the World T20 squad but the board still has time till October 10, 2021 to make the tweaks if it wants to.