SL vs IND: Twitter not happy with Shikhar Dhawan for his painful knock of 40 runs in 2nd T20I

The ongoing T20I series between Sri Lanka and India was supposed to be dress rehearsal for certain places in order to seal their spots in the T20 World Cup squad to be played later this year. However, with the COVID striking the Indian camp, all those talks went for the toss. As many as eight players including Krunal Pandya who contracted the virus were not available for India in the second T20I.

This affected their team balance a lot as the visitors could play only five specialist batsmen in their playing XI. Out of them, three batsmen – Devdutt Padikkal, Nitish Rana and Ruturaj Gaikwad – were the debutants and the skipper Shikhar Dhawan had to anchor the innings.

His place in the first-choice playing XI has been under the scanner for a long time now in the shortest format. Dhawan himself had said that he would look to strengthen his place in the Indian team in the series. However, after the first two matches, especially in the second T20I, he ended up playing slowly with strike-rate below 100.

Dhawan scored 40 off 42 balls

Shikhar Dhawan opened the innings with Ruturaj Gaikwad and started off well stitching 45 runs for the opening wicket. He batted well at the start churning out well but as the innings progressed, the pitch got extremely slow and it started turning as well. Sri Lanka also introduced the spinners making life tough for Dhawan and the other batsmen.

The southpaw tried his best to get out of the jail but the likes of Akila Dananjaya, Ramesh Mendis, Wanindu Hasaranga and others didn’t let him score freely. Despite starting off at a good pace, by the time he got out, Dhawan had scored only 40 runs off 42 balls and expectedly, the fans weren’t happy with him at all. The conditions were certainly tough to bat but on social media, such things aren’t taken into consideration with fans making judgements soon.

As far as India is concerned, the innings didn’t have any pace and despite having wickets in hand, they could never up the ante. Eventually, they ended up scoring only 132 runs in their 20 overs and interestingly, Shikhar Dhawan turned out to be the highest scorer of the innings.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to his innings:

Bhai inhe batao ye t20 hai Dhawan me aaj Babar ki aatma aa gayi run a ball WTH!

— Shrey Sharma (@ssmusiclover89) July 28, 2021

Dhawan underrated statpadder tbh !!

— Aavi🇮🇳 (@Kl_esque) July 28, 2021

How to play test in t20s? Whom will u prefer?

Jadhav
Dhawan

— RK-ARJUN™ (@Rkarjun0071081) July 28, 2021

Dhawan could've atleast played run per ball innings
Man is a pest here in this line-up

— Sunny (@ewyikesed) July 28, 2021

Instead of sealing his spot Dhawan made sure Kl Rahul will open with Rohit in T20WC .

— anuroop (@rohitfanboy45) July 28, 2021

Did you check dhawan strike rate in the last two matches and the intent which he played .. Against this lineup if he is going to struggle , no way he is going to give a good start and win the World Cup for us

— VK (@vincool123) July 28, 2021

Dhawan scored 40 off 42 deliveries. So we are two T20 batsman short. #SLvIND #india #sportstak

— Pradeep sharma (@Pradeep200019) July 28, 2021

probably last t20i series for dhawan

— roshan c 🇮🇳 (@LuffyRoshan) July 28, 2021

Uncle knocks from rutu & dhawan#INDvSL

— K.E.V.Y.N (@KevynMaroon) July 28, 2021

Stat padding Dhawan ???

— محمد عرفان (@Irfan_irru_17) July 28, 2021

This stat is Not looking good for Dhawan. #SLvIND https://t.co/RH2b9inR3Z

— Gihan Wickramathilake 🇱🇰 (@gihaanw) July 28, 2021

Dhawan mass 🔥🔥

— Sumit 🇮🇳 (@beingsummit999) July 28, 2021

Smart from Dhawan. He wants to be in that plane for tests.

— Bhavik Modha (@decent_smile) July 28, 2021

Dhawan needs Ponting as a head coach whenever he plays T20 Cricket 😂#IndvsSL #TeamIndia

— ಕಾರ್ತಿಕ್ ಕಶ್ಯಪ್ (@karthik__kr) July 28, 2021

India had just got 18-19 runs in couple of overs when Dhawan decided to slog and got out. Once again inns lost momentum. #INDvsSL #INDvSL

— Wanderer (@DisDatNothin) July 28, 2021