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Friday, June 7, 2013

Being in the moment works for Shikhar


CARDIFF: There's certain impertinence to the manner in which Shikhar Dhawan walks. He could be anywhere, walking down the road, on the field, in a social gathering. But there's always that bit of swagger he seems to carry along.

It's the kind of attitude he brings to his cricket too. Walking to the nets and back or even when walking to open the innings for India, the opposition, the conditions or the burden of any expectation don't seem to be on top of his mind. All that seemingly matters is teammates being happy for him and the paying public enjoying the spectacle of his stroke-play.


Cricket will always be all consuming for the southpaw, but it's the moment that seems to matter more.


It showed on Thursday too, when he scored his first one-day century and set up India's win. It was a rushed single, from 99 to 100, and when it happened, he simply took his helmet off, threw both his arms up in the air, and gazed into distance.


It seemed to occur to him that he alone was the centre of all focus that moment. He just enjoyed it.


The Indian fans in Cardiff thronged the 16,000-capacity stadium here and made enough noise to give any packed ground back home a run for its money. And they went "Shikhaar Dhaawan". There's a north-India connect if not a pan-Indian one here in the Welsh capital and they adored each of those 12 fours and six he hit and laughed at AB de Villiers when he missed an easy stumping. You could identify with the grin on Shikhar's face as he soaked it all in.


If this is how it goes, the 27-year-old is going to be enjoying his stay in England. He's middling the ball so well that cricket writers have begun complaining about the lack for prose. His teammates - who had to suffer close to 25 matches, without a 100-run stand from various opening combinations - are now looking up to him.


Shikhar does appear to believe he has the confidence to be India's top-order benefactor at this moment.


"Just watch the ball and play the ball and enjoy watching my partners bat and enjoying running between the wickets and enjoy taking the pressure." This is what he said when asked if he was enjoying his batting more than any other time in his career. How was the experience like? "I'm really happy with the way I played this innings, and more happy that my team got a win against South Africa, and looking forward for the coming matches," he added.


It's not quite sure if it has crossed his mind yet that this moment of self-appraisal may soon become a passing phase as rival teams begin to work harder to decode him and the growing responsibility within the team to keep the momentum going soon begins to metamorphose into pressure. You wouldn't know if he's ever thought about anything in life this far.


But for a team desperately looking to plug the opening problem, this is perhaps the ultimate test for Shikhar. Rohit Sharma has lacked consistency but is most likely to open for the rest of the tournament. However, given the Mumbai batsman's affinity to experience a form slump, Shikhar may always have to be on his toes.






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Shweta Pandey

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