Indian ex-opener Shikhar Dhawan has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket, retiring on Saturday.
From a second ball duck in the initial match against Australia, ODI, 2010 to being one of the most formidable opening pairs with fellow Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma and later becoming India’s best player in ICC tournaments. The time that he has spent amongst Indian jerseys has no doubt been successful for him without any question. Here is a list of some highlights about Dhawan’s career including an unbroken record made on his first Test appearance.
In 85 balls, Shikhar Dhawan reached his first hundred in Tests — the fastest by a debutant in Test Cricket; he went on to make 187 off just 174 balls against Australia at Mohali in 2013.
During centuries scored on debut innings only, no batsman has managed a strike rate above 107.47 as shown by the southpaw.
His score of unbeaten 187 was the highest ever for an Indian player on his test debut.
He held hands with Murali Vijay to post a partnership of 289 runs versus Australia at Mohali during the year mentioned earlier, which remains unmatched for the first wicket between India and Australia down under.
When he made his personal top score of 190 at Galle against Sri Lanka (between lunch and tea) in Tests in 2017, he produced maximum aggregate between two important meals by an Indian batman.
At least eight players have amassed more than 5000 runs with average above forty and strike rate beyond ninety during their career –Dhawan is one among them.
His peak run-getting Year came in ODI when Shikhar Dhawan recorded a total of 1162 runs at an average of 50.52 comprising five centuries along with four half-ton within25 innings played throughout that year itself back in2013(“Stats and trivia”).
The outspoken player from the subcontinent’s most populous country remains the sole person in his national team to have had 3 centuries at this ground; he scored these three tons against the West Indies (2013), Sri Lanka (2017), as well as Australia in 2019.
He hit a record number of fours that is 768 off 224 innings in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL).
Dhawan’s aggregate is now second highest ever, behind Virat Kohli’s score of 8004, after making only 6769 runs throughout IPL career.
Nine times Dhawan finished with over 400 runs on any single year of IPL. His best performance came during 2020/21 season where he achieved an average of 44.14, 2 hundreds, 4 fifties with a total run tallying to 618, out of 17 innings played. Kohli has made it to such raiders’ list ten times (“Stats and trivia”).
Among all players who scored minimum 600 from one tournament game into another at ICC Champions Trophy, Shikhar Dhawan finished off with highest personal average — which accounted for more than 77.88 points per match.
In ICC Champions Trophy series only four cricketers could manage three centuries each – these include Herschelle Gibbs or Chris Gayle however Sourav Ganguly also scored three centuries in it.
