CWC 2019: Four Indians who might be playing their last World Cup
The Cricket World Cup 2019 is within touching distance now and all teams are gearing up for the ICC's mega event. Team India reached England on 22nd May to take part in the World Cup. They will play two warm-up matches against New Zealand and Bangladesh before kicking-off their campaign on July 5 against South Africa.
Team India has selected a balance but very experienced squad for the World Cup 2019. The 15-man squad is the oldest squad ever to represent India in a World Cup with an average age of 29.5 years. So clearly age is not on the side of all of our players as far as the cricketing career goes.
So let's have a look at 4 such Indian players who could be playing in their last World Cup.
#4 Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan has been an integral part of this Indian limited overs set-up for years now. Since 2013 Champions Trophy his and Rohit Sharma's opening combination has proved to be one of the best in the world. Both of them compliment each other very well and are going to be crucial in India's 2019 World Cup campaign.
Dhawan is one of the very few Indian cricketers who started very late in international cricket. After years of domestic cricket experience, Dhawan made his ODI debut in 2010 against Australia but couldn't make much of a mark then. It was in 2013 when he made his Test debut against the same opposition that his career took off afterwards.
Since 2013 Dhawan has been quite a force for team India at the top of the order scoring runs consistently. He is a prolific run-scorer in ICC tournaments, top scoring in the 2013 and 2017 Champions Trophy and was leading run-scorer for India in the last World Cup.
But despite all of those accolades, one cannot deny the fact that Dhawan is 33 years of age now. When the next World Cup comes around he would be around 37 and with the amount of competition in the Indian team, it would be very difficult for him to hold on to his place for so long.
Dhawan has already lost the Test spot to young Prithvi Shaw and the way youngsters are coming up it is very unlikely that he would be there till the next World Cup. Having said that, the fitness level that today's cricketer maintains, age has just become a number as long as you keep scoring runs.