Jodhpur (Rajasthan): Former India batter Shikhar Dhawan on Wednesday disclosed that he didn't have the "inspiration" left to keep playing and performing in domestic cricket to find a place in the Indian cricket team and hence he decided to hang up his boots from domestic and international cricket last month.
"As I close this chapter of my cricketing journey, I carry with me countless memories and gratitude. Thank you for the love and support! Jai Hind!" Dhawan captioned his post with a video on X.
"I am standing at a point where when I look back, I only see memories and a new life when I look forward. It was always my dream to play for India, and I got to live it. I am thankful to a lot of people for that. First of all, my family, my childhood coaches and then my team that I played with for so many years. I got a new family, fame and love. But it is said that to move forward, you need to flip the pages," Dhawan said in a video posted on his official X handle.
"I am announcing my retirement from international and domestic cricket. As I bid farewell to my cricketing journey, I have peace in my heart. I played a lot for my country. I only say this to myself, that you don't need to be upset about not playing for your country again, but be happy that you had the opportunity to do so," he concluded.
The 38-year-old Dhawan announced his retirement from all forms of cricket through a social media post in August after having played 34 Tests, 167 ODIs and 68 T20Is for India between 2013 and 2022.
"I didn't want to play domestic cricket, which I started playing at the age of 18 or 19 and I didn't have that inspiration from inside to play that (form of) cricket," Dhawan told PTI in an interview on the sidelines of the Legends League Cricket (LLC).
The southpaw became India's 25th ODI skipper against Sri Lanka in June 2021 when he stood in for Rohit Sharma and went on to lead the country in 12 matches, winning seven and losing three.
However, before the ODI World Cup last year, Dhawan, who last played for India in December 2022, had to make way for a younger batter in Shubman Gill.
"If I look back, the last two years of my cricketing career, I wasn't playing much of international cricket and I was playing IPL to IPL, so I wasn't playing much of cricket (overall)," said the southpaw opener. "I thought that, 'alright, I've played enough, and I need to give it a break because I'm not playing that much cricket, so you lose the touch as well," he added.
He left the arena as a bonafide IPL legend, after appearing in 222 matches, which yielded 6769 runs, including two hundreds and 51 half-centuries. He holds the record for second most runs and was the first cricketer to smash back-to-back tons in the cash-rich league. His 768 fours in the tournament are the highest by any batter.
Dhawan, who captained Punjab Kings in a few games last year, said he also realised that practising three months for the IPL would not be enough for him to be in contention for a national call-up."I thought that continuing IPL and just coming up with two, three months of hard work wouldn't be enough for me to go and play. So that was the reason for me to just call it off, and yeah, I was very happy and satisfied and content with whatever I achieved in my career, and very, very grateful for everything," he said.
