Ashish Nehra feels Shikhar Dhawan needs just one knock to get his confidence back

Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan has been battling a lean patch of form. His last fifty in the limited overs format came way back in January when he scored 66 against New Zealand in the second ODI at Mount Maunganui, and since then, his highest score has been 30.

Dhawan started the Australia ODI series with a golden duck in the first match at Hyderabad. The year 2019 has not been as kind to Dhawan as 2018 was. Dhawan has had starts in all the games he has played but has not gone on to make substantial contributions to the team’s total.

Ashish Nehra believes Dhawan needs just one knock to comeback  

Former India fast bowler Ashish Nehra is not bothered by Dhawan’s lack of runs in recent matches. He feels that if KL Rahul had not made runs in the T20Is against Australia, there would have not been any questions on the place of Dhawan in the Indian team leading up to the World Cup 2019.

“I feel he is one good innings away from coming back to form. I am not that worried about Dhawan,” Nehra told CricketNext.

Nehra also mentioned that whether it is Rahul or Dhawan, any player that gets a chance to bat for Team India, will look to score runs. Nehra also pointed out that Dhawan has scored a decent amount of runs in the opportunities he has got and said, “It is not that Dhawan has played 10-15 innings without doing anything.”

Nehra mentioned the two innings played by KL Rahul in the recently concluded T20I series- 50 and 47. Nehra said that if Rahul had not made those runs, no one would have been talking about him replacing Dhawan in the ODI team. “Even for Rahul, he has scored just those two – 50 and 47 in the T20I format (vs Australia). If he wouldn’t have done that, the question would have been irrelevant,” said Nehra.

Lean patch for Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan had a decent outing in 2018, scoring centuries in the Asia Cup 2018 and even contributing to India’s ODI series win in South Africa. But in 2019, he has played 9 innings in One-Day cricket and has managed just 243 runs. His numbers in 2019 reads – 0, 32, 23, 75*, 66, 28, 13, 6 and 0. With just four more ODI games left for India to prepare for the ICC World Cup 2019, the team management will definitely be sweating over Dhawan’s form.

Especially more so, when KL Rahul has found some decent form and come up as an alternate opener to Dhawan. Meanwhile, for Shikhar Dhawan, he still has four ODI games against Australia to prove his return to form and the entire IPL 2019, where he will play for Delhi Capitals, to cement his place in the Indian team for the World Cup in England and Wales, as the first-choice opener.

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