Hyderabad: Team India's swashbuckling opener Shikhar Dhawan has been ruled out of the ongoing 2019 ICC World Cup for at least three weeks as the southpaw fractured his left thumb while playing against Australia on Sunday.
Dhawan was hit by a Nathan Coulter-Nile bouncer in the first innings. However, the India opener continued to play with the injury and scored 117 off 109 balls in a winning cause.
But, due to the swollen thumb, Dhawan did not field at all during Australia’s run chase and after undergoing scans on Tuesday, he was ruled out.
Since it's a big injury, India will look for a replacement player, but Dhawan is irreplaceable, here's why:
- Dhawan is a big-match player and reserves his best for the big tournaments. He is a key player for India and reserves his best for the big tournaments (World Cup and Champions Trophy).File image
- He has scored 1238 runs in 20 such matches at an incredible average of 65.15 and strike rate of 98.25. These include 6 hundred and 4 fifties.
- Dhawan was also India's highest run-scorer in the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia with 412 runs. He scored two centuries in the tournament with a highest of 137 against Sri Lanka. Only Sachin Tendulkar (6) and Sourav Ganguly (4) have more centuries in World Cup matches for India.
- He also ended up as the highest run-scorer in the two Champions Trophy tournaments scoring 363 runs in 2013 and 338 runs in 2017.File image
- The southpaw boasts of second-highest average (65.15) in these tournaments in history (min. 500 runs) only after Andrew Symonds (76.66). He is followed by some ODI greats like Saeed Anwar (63.36), Vivian Richards (63.31) and Ganguly (61.88). Just to put things in perspective, Sachin Tendulkar’s average in these tournaments was 52.28.
- Dhawan's strike rate in these two marquee ICC tournaments is the seventh-best after Kapil Dev, David Miller, AB de Villiers, Virender Sehwag, David Warner and Brendon McCullum.
- Interestingly, India has also won 4 out of the five ICC tournament matches where he has scored a century.
Also, Dhawan was going through the poor form before the 2019 World Cup and he didn't even have the best of starts to the tournament, but back at his favourite hunting ground Oval, the opener looked in fine spirit and despite the thumb injury, he went onto hit his first hundred of the marquee event that too against defending champions Australia.
Hence, India will definitely miss Dhawan's presence in the team and they might call his replacement but the 33-year-old southpaw will remain irreplaceable, at least in ICC tournaments.
