What India should do with Dhawan in overseas Tests

Dhawan’s Test career has a definite pattern, something which works against him all the time and defines why he looked like never getting out in his last Test in India to staying only four balls - first ball duck in 1st innings and third ball duck in the 2nd – in England.

For all the differences in approach and style of play that Shikhar Dhawan has with Yuvraj Singh, he has a striking similarity of getting the blues in whites too. It was evident that Yuvraj had problems adjusting with the longest format of the game.  His 40 Tests compared to 307 ODIs speak for themselves. In the case of Dhawan though, the jitters in Test cricket have got less to do with the changing colour of clothes and ball and more so with the changing conditions. Otherwise, how would you explain a person smashing a century (107) in the first session of Day 1 in his last Test match in India and ending up getting a pair in his next date with red ball in England? Pure coincidence, right? Nope.

Dhawan’s Test career has a definite pattern, something which goes against him all the time and defines why he never looked like getting out in his last Test in India to staying at the crease for only four balls - a first ball duck in 1st innings and a third ball duck in the 2nd – in England.

If you take out Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where he averages 173 and 86.66 respectively, his Test average away from home comes down below 30. In England it gets worse (20.33) and to India’s dismay, there seems no improvement ahead of another five-Test assignment in the same country.

So why do India persist with Dhawan despite knowing his shortcomings in front of the moving ball? The answer is simple, India never play successive Test series overseas. In between there slips a couple of limited-overs series and more importantly a Test series in India or in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, where obviously, Dhawan bats with such authority that the idea of dropping him for the following overseas Test series doesn’t even cross the selectors’ mind.

This illusion, however, doesn’t ensure Dhawan a chance to open the innings for the entire series. In a sort of knee-jerk reaction, Dhawan gets the axe after the initial few games. It started in England in 2014 - Dhawan was shown the door after failing to score a half-century in the first three Tests. It continued in Australia later that year where Dhawan’s biggest competitor KL Rahul made his debut and even scored a hundred in the final Test. The same ordeal was repeated in South Africa earlier this year when Parthiv Patel and KL Rahul took turns to open in the third Test after Dhawan’s faulty technique was exposed in the first two Test matches.

On every occasion, the Delhi left-hander started as the first-choice opener on the back of stellar performances – in India ahead of the 2014 England tour, in Sri Lanka, where he scored two breath-taking tons ahead of the 2018 South Africa tour. In between the England and Australia Test series in 2014, Dhawan had proved his mettle in limited-overs cricket.

The reason for scrutinising Dhawan’s pair in a tour match against Essex is because it has the same premise as the earlier England, Australia and South Africa tours. The Indian think-tank has again given indications that Dhawan will start the innings with Vijay in the first Test and Rahul will have to wait for his opportunity. Following the script like an obedient student, Dhawan too fell cheaply – getting an inside an edge to the keeper in the first innings and losing his off-stump to a delivery that held its line in the second innings.

Before the 2018 England tour again ends with India trying out two-three different opening pairs, the three-day tour match was a clear giveaway that India should rectify the problem before it even arises.