Mahela Jayawardene praises one Indian batsman for playing responsible cricket in absence of seniors

After a magnificent and brave run chase by Bangladesh in the third game of the Nidahas Trophy 2018 against hosts Sri Lankan team, the tri-series has now opened up for all the three competitive teams with everybody alive and aiming to claim their hands on the prestigious title. All the three sides, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have now registered a victory each in their tallies so far.

The compositions of all the three teams are quite different as Indian team has chosen to rest their regular senior players and have taken this opportunity to test their bench strength in this tri-series. Whereas the other two teams are playing with their full strength squads except for experienced campaigners like Shakib Al Hasan and Angelo Mathews have pulled out due to injuries.

Dhawan has taken the added responsibility

Former Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene has hailed Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan for taking the heavy charge of leading the batting order with consistent performances on the top in the absence of the some of the senior guys. Dhawan played an explosive knock of 90 runs off just 49 balls in the opening encounter of the tri-nation series against the Lankans, while the other Indian batsmen struggled a lot to match the fighting spirit of the opener.

The southpaw Delhi lad continued his golden form in white ball cricket by scoring another fifty in the second T20I match against Bangladesh in the run chase which guided his team past the finishing line successfully to open their account in the series.

The former Lankan legend also mentioned in his piece on the importance of openers adding some crucial runs at the top in the shorter version of the game. Shikhar has also taken this added responsibility when his fellow opener Rohit Sharma is not in the best of forms and mindset in the recent games.

“Missing several senior players, Shikhar Dhawan has thus far taken on the additional responsibilities with confidence scoring 90 and 55. In T20 cricket, it’s always helpful when your openers are scoring runs and Dhawan has been pivotal,” wrote Jayawardene in his post for TOI.

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