Photo Credit: Instagram Photo of @shikhardofficial
Former India opener Shikhar Dhawan revealed on Wednesday that he lacked the “inspiration” to continue playing domestic cricket in pursuit of a spot in the national team, which led to his decision to retire last month.
The 38-year-old Dhawan retired from international and domestic cricket in late August, having represented India in 34 Tests, 167 ODIs, and 68 T20Is between 2013 and 2022.
“I didn’t want to play domestic cricket, which I started playing at the age of 18 or 19 and I didn’t have that inspiration from inside to play that (form of) cricket,” he said.
Dhawan became India’s 25th ODI captain in June 2021, leading the team in an ODI against Sri Lanka in Rohit Sharma‘s absence. He went on to captain India in 12 matches, winning seven and losing three.
However, before the 2023 ODI World Cup, Dhawan was replaced by the younger Shubman Gill.
His last international appearance for India came in December 2022.
“If I look back, the last two years of my cricketing career, I wasn’t playing much of international cricket and I was playing IPL to IPL, so I wasn’t playing much of cricket (overall),” said the big-hitting opener.
Dhawan retired as an IPL legend, having played 222 matches and scored 6,769 runs, including two centuries and 51 half-centuries. He holds the record for the most fours in the tournament, with 768, and was the first batter to hit consecutive hundreds in IPL history.
Dhawan reflected on his mindset before retiring, stating, “I thought that, ‘alright, I’ve played enough, and I need to give it a break because I’m not playing that much cricket, so you lose the touch as well.'”
Having captained Punjab Kings in a few games last year, Dhawan realized that training for just two to three months ahead of the IPL wouldn’t be sufficient to earn a national team recall.
“I thought that continuing IPL and just coming up with two, three months of hard work won’t be enough for me to go and play,” he said.
With an impressive average of 65.15—the highest among all Indian batters in ICC limited-overs events—Dhawan reiterated his satisfaction with how his career concluded. “So that was the reason for me to just call it off, and yeah, I was very happy and satisfied and content with whatever I achieved in my career, and very, very grateful for everything,” he said.
Dhawan, who played in the 2015 and 2019 ODI World Cups and was part of India’s victorious 2013 Champions Trophy squad, added, “Of course, we would have loved to win the World Cup.”
In terms of partnerships, Dhawan stands eighth in the all-time list for highest partnership runs in career for any wicket alongside India captain Rohit Sharma. The duo amassed 5,193 runs at an average of 45.15 across 117 matches, including 18 century and 15 half-century stands.
Dhawan expressed his happiness over Rohit’s continued success, particularly India’s T20 World Cup win under his leadership. “He’s a great captain, and so happy that he led the team and won the World Cup for our nation. We were waiting for that World Cup for a long time. We were very close in (winning) the ODI World Cup as well, and now we achieved that goal in T20Is,” Dhawan said.
“He’s a very experienced captain, and I’m sure all the boys love him as a leader and he has done a phenomenal job for the Indian team,” he added.
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