Former India opener turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that Shikhar Dhawan does not get the recognition that he should get with his achievements in the Indian Premier League. Dhawan scored an unbeaten 88 off 59 balls against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He also became the second player to cross the 6000-run mark in the cash-rich league in the process as well.
While reviewing the PBKS-CSK match in a video shared on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra said: “The start was slow, the pitch was quite sticky and there only came my Player of the Match – Shikhar Dhawan. He is an amazing guy. He has scored more than 6000 IPL runs, played more than 200 matches, scored more than 1000 runs against Chennai. What more can he do but he still flows under the radar. No one talks about him.”
While applauding Dhawan’s consistency, the veteran feels that the Delhi Capitals (DC) might have made a mistake by not retaining Shikhar Dhawan. Meanwhile, Mohammad Kaif, who was the Delhi Capitals’ assistant coach last year, has added that Delhi let go of Dhawan with a heavy heart. However, he also revealed that there was apparently a toss-up between Prithvi Shaw and Dhawan and they went with Shaw in the end.
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Chopra observed: “He comes every season and scores 500-600 runs, makes good contributions but still, the team does not retain him. I am telling you Delhi’s loss is Punjab’s gain. He (Dhawan) batted extremely well, only singles at the start. The pitch was asking tough questions. When Mayank got out, it seemed the game might get stuck but there comes Bhanuka Rajapaksa, he got lives, but who cares.”
“After starting slowly, Shikhar’s wagon started gathering pace. He shuffled very well, moved towards the off-stump and played the balls on the leg side, straight hits towards the end. 88 not out on a difficult pitch is sometimes actually more than a century. Shikhar Dhawan was actually stellar in my opinion,” he stated.
Aakash Chopra also shared that Punjab Kings’ (PBKS) Arshdeep Singh has been the standout bowler at the death over in IPL 2022 so far. Arshdeep returned with the figures of 1/23 in his four overs spell against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He gave away just eight runs in the penultimate over of the match when the defending champions needed 35 runs off the last two overs.
He added, “You have to focus on Arshdeep’s bowling as much as MS Dhoni’s batting, how well he is bowling. Whether Hardik Pandya is standing there or MS Dhoni, he doesn’t get scared against anyone. He doesn’t go away from his game plans at all. In my opinion, he has been absolutely stellar. You have Lockie Ferguson, Shami, Bumrah, Kagiso Rabada – you get all of them together, Arshdeep Singh is doing the best death bowling at the moment. He keeps bowling the yorkers one after the other at one place, he uses that angle.”
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Arshdeep, meanwhile, gave away a total of just 14 runs in the two overs he bowled at the death for the Punjab Kings and it put pressure on CSK and required runs almost reached 12 runs per over as well.
Aakash Chopra said: “He (Arshdeep) bowled a very good over and left a lot of runs for the last over – 27 runs. Rabada’s over was also important, Mayank’s captaincy was also very good, he took the game deep. 27 runs in the last over had never been scored. The most in IPL history was 24, that too was scored by Dhoni against Axar Patel and perhaps that’s why Rahul Chahar had an over left but the captain didn’t go towards him. When Rishi Dhawan comes to bowl – first ball half-tracker, six. I said he is gone. The second ball was wide and the pressure increased even more. But then a good yorker, then an attempt to hit, the catch was held in the deep and that was it.”
However, the veteran has also added that Ravindra Jadeja has been struggling both as captain and player in IPL 2022 thus far. Ravindra Jadeja has scored 112 runs at a below-par average and strike rate of 22.40 and 121.73 respectively in IPL 2022 so far. He has also picked up only five wickets in eight matches and has conceded an average of 8.19 runs per over as well. Notably, CSK are at the ninth spot in the points table after having a rather forgettable show.
“I am feeling that Jaddu is reeling under the pressure of captaincy. Dwayne Bravo did pick up wickets but Pretorius conceded 50 runs. I was thinking – Mitchell Santner conceded only eight runs in two overs. Why did you not get him to bowl, you gave him only two overs. Pretorius gave 50 and you got him to bowl his full quota of four overs. Jaddu himself bowls just two overs. Agree there were left-handers at the ground but you can bowl left-arm spin to lefties,” he again shared.
“Jaddu’s bat is not hitting the ball, neither against Mumbai nor here. Ravindra Jadeja scored 21 runs off 16 balls, which included a six off the second-last ball of the last over. The game was done and dusted. Till the time the six was not hit, he was run-a-ball 14 runs. He is struggling for form and that is a huge huge concern in my opinion for the Chennai franchise and India as well because he is neither picking up wickets with the ball nor scoring runs with the bat,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
