Virat Kohli bats for Shikhar Dhawan

Kohli says Dhawan is an impact player

India’s Test captain, Virat Kohli has said that he doesn’t see Shikhar Dhawan as an out of form batsman. Speaking about the opener’s two recent centuries in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Kohli rubbished the critics, reports Wisden India.

Dhawan had a bad start to the South Africa series, in the 2 matches he played in Twenty20 series, he could manage to score only 14 runs and in the 5-match one-day international series, only 126 runs.

He was heavily criticised after that, with everyone doubting his position at the top order in the Indian team. Even the story of the Test series started on the same lines for Dhawan as he got a pair in the first match in Mohali.

In the second Test at Bengaluru, he batted out with Murali Vijay on the opening day and scored an unbeaten 45 runs before the rain washed out the next four days of the match. His innings looked promising and full of confidence as he was executing the wanted shots.

Giving replies to the press when asked questions about Dhawan’s form in the post match conference, Kohli said: “If you call scoring two hundreds (In Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) in three Test matches struggling, then I don’t know what ‘in-form’ is. His last three matches, he has got a hundred in Galle, he has got a hundred in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, he got injured after and he played his first Test match after that in Mohali.”

He continued and asked people to not criticise with such a small sample size and assured that he is one important player in which we have to instilled confidence.

“So let’s not be too hard on someone because of two innings or three innings. This is international cricket, you are going to play numerous innings and we have to be patient with players like Shikhar because he is an impact player and we need to give him as much confidence as we possibly can. When he gets going he wins you the game, that is a surety.

“I don’t think he has been out of form at all, he has been batting beautifully. Sometimes you will not get the scores that you desire, but it is important how you are playing at that moment. He is certainly hitting the ball very well. We don’t see any issues with his batting or his confidence for sure. I am delighted that he is feeling good about his batting at the moment,” he concluded.

Hopefully, for the team’s sake, he carries on with the batting rhythm that he found a bit in the Bengaluru Test in the upcoming match in Nagpur.