If you have been following international cricket, then you’re probably already aware of the leadership reshuffling that has dogged the Indian team since the start of the year.
Incredibly, the team has gone through six captains in as many months, following the initial removal of Virat Kohli, which took place back in January. Following several changes due to injury, the latest helmsman is Shikhar Dhawan, who will aim to lead the team to victory in the ODI portion of their tour of the West Indies.
If you like to have a flutter on the cricket leagues then you will probably be watching Dhawan’s performance with great interest, wondering what kind of impact he will have on the team. Will he be able to offset the inevitable side effects that come with so many alterations in the team’s line-up? Let’s take a quick look at Dhawan’s accomplishments so far before we consider what the rest of 2022 could hold for India’s national team.
Mixed reviews
Casting our gaze back over the last decade, it’s fair to say that Dhawan’s career has undergone some peaks and troughs ever since he first came to prominence. His international career kicked off with a remarkable debut in a Test match against Australia in 2012/3, where he wowed audiences by managing to stroke the fastest Test century ever achieved by a debutant.
Following this accomplishment, he became part of the Indian team competing in the Champions Trophy and continued to impress with stellar performances, scoring two more centuries in India’s first two matches.
After these initial triumphs, Dhawan’s momentum seemed to slacken and for a couple of years, he struggled to maintain his form, mingling good performances with disappointing ones. Since his return to victory in the 2015 World Cup, however, Dhawan has remained a consistently solid player. Among his achievements, in the 2017 Champions Trophy, he managed to scoop the golden bat, having scored the highest number of runs of any player in the tournament.
As another point in his favour, Dhawan already has prior experience in captaining the Indian cricket team, as he was placed at the helm in 2021 for the ODI matches they played against Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, on that occasion, he was unable to lead his men to victory.
Could 2022 be a big year for Dhawan and his team?
While Dhawan may have struggled on and off with poor form over the last decade, he has made numerous contributions to the Indian team’s successes over the years. With so much experience under his belt, it’s arguable that he has as much chance as anyone else of steering his teammates to victory during the rest of the year.
In fact, 2022 has already given him more than one cause for celebration, as he has played his 200th match in the Indian Premier League. He has also become the second player to achieve 6000 runs, following in the footsteps of former captain Kohli. Can he add more accomplishments during the rest of 2022? That remains to be seen. At the very least, cricket fans will surely be hoping that there are no more potentially destabilising reshuffles for the rest of the year and that Dhawan remains in place at the helm.
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