Shikhar Dhawan is set to return to Delhi Daredevils for next year's IPL, 11 years after making his debut with the franchise in the inaugural edition in 2008. Sunrisers Hyderabad is likely to trade Dhawan with three Daredevils cricketers – Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma and Shahbaz Nadeem.
That Dhawan was not going to turn up for Sunrisers in the upcoming season of IPL was evident when the pay dispute factor came to fore. The confusion was regarding Dhawan’s next destination. Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab were the first to show interest in India’s prolific limited overs opener but both were out of the race after using the trade window to rope in Quinton de Kock and Mandeep Singh.
On Wednesday it was confirmed that it will be Dhawan’s home team Delhi Daredevils that will acquire the services of the left-hander. Dhawan last played for Daredevils in the first season of the IPL in 2008. Then he moved to Mumbai for a couple of years and finally arrived in Hyderabad.
The problem started last season when Sunirsers did not retain Dhawan and instead used the Right to Match card to rope him with INR 5.2 crore, which was considerably low from what his India opening partner Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli get from their respective franchises - Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Dhawan has been the leading run-scorer for Sunrisers with a tally of 2768 from 91 innings at an average of 35.03 and strike-rate of 125.13. In the 2018 IPL, he made 497 runs at 35.50.
Both Daredevils and Sunrisers, however, have not made any official statement about Dhawan’s swap but it is believed the same will take place soon. This will be the third trade after de Kock’s money only trade between his former franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore and new one Mumbai Indians, followed by Mandeep Singh, who was traded with Marcus Stoinis by Kings XI Punjab from Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The auction for IPL 12 will take place on December 16.