3 Milestones that Indian batsmen can achieve in the second ODI
India continued their dominance at home, as the Men in Blue battered the Windies in the first ODI at Guwahati, gunning down 323 with utmost ease.
World No.1 and No.2 batsmen, captain Virat Kohli (140) and vice-captain Rohit Sharma (152*) proved too good for the Windies' bowlers as they laid the foundation of the chase, with Rohit Sharma taking the team across the winning mark.
The game was a run-fest and a perfect entertainment for the fans on a Sunday evening. The action now shifts to Visakhapatnam, with Windies looking to register a comeback in the 5-match series. The South Indian venue has also been a conventionally high scoring ground, with the possibility of another high scoring encounter.
Having said that, let's have a look at 3 milestones which Indian batsmen can achieve in the following game:
#3 Shikhar Dhawan - 5000 ODI Runs
Shikhar Dhawan enjoyed a great run of form in the Asia Cup, finishing as the highest run-getter with 342 runs in 5 games. He claimed the Man of the Tournament award for his consistent outings. Gabbar returned to international cricket after a few weeks, after being dropped from the Test side earlier.
He looked off-colour in the first ODI, as he fell to Oshane Thomas for just 4 runs. However, the southpaw shall be looking forward to making amends for it in the second ODI at Visakhapatnam.
Dhawan is all set to enter the elite 5000+ ODI club and shall become the 13th Indian to enter the list containing prestigious names such as Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh. He could become the 5th left-handed batsman after Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina to score 5,000 ODI runs for India.
Dhawan has scored 4827 runs in 111 ODI matches at an average of 46.41 and is just 173 runs away from the milestone. This might be an over-ambitious target, but given the batting position of the southpaw and the high scoring pitch of Vizag, Dhawan might well breach the mark in the next match.
If he succeeds to do so, this shall be his highest individual score in ODIs.