There is still time for the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to take place. After all, it has only been a little over two months since Chennai Super Kings (CSK) were crowned champions for the fourth time after their victory over Kolkata Knight Riders in the final in Dubai.
Yet, a sense of excitement would’ve started to build with the announcement of the dates for the mega auction, which will take place in the first week of February and will be the biggest such event in the history of the cash-rich league.
Over the years, the various franchises had grown used to a certain set of players who had become part of the team’s core, whether Kieron Pollard, Jasprit Bumrah and the Pandya brothers in the Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai Indians or the likes of Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo in MS Dhoni’s CSK.
With franchises permitted to retain only a handful of players ahead of the mega auction — a maximum of four, that is — the 2021 edition was perhaps the last time we saw these core groups that became synonymous with their franchises in action together.
Among some of the senior players who were let go by their franchises when the retention list was revealed was Shikhar Dhawan, who had been plying his trade for the Delhi Capitals’ since 2019 and had earlier represented Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) from 2013 to 2018.
Though his chances of representing the national team gradually faded over the years, first in the Test side and more recently in the white-ball formats, Dhawan remained a consistent run-maker in the IPL over the years and had formed an explosive left-right opening combination with young Prithvi Shaw.
A batter who found himself among the top-five run-getters in five of the last six IPL seasons — the consistency of which few have able to emulate — would certainly feel hard done by after not getting retained by his franchise, who instead opted to go with Rishabh Pant, Anrich Nortje, Axar Patel and Dhawan’s opening partner Shaw.
While Dhawan has good reason to feel disappointed, his release into the player pool for the mega auction could, in fact, also be an opportunity for the Delhiite, given there are two new franchises in next year’s action in Lucknow and Ahmedabad, who are yet to come up with a name for their respective sides.
Dhawan, who had hit back-to-back hundreds and was the second highest run-getter in 2020 and has gone past 500 runs in each of the last three seasons, should attract a decent bid. Maybe not the kind of bidding war the the likes of Ben Stokes have attracted in recent years, or Rashid Khan is expected to attract in February, but a tussle between the franchises nevertheless.
Aside from his batting form as well as his fitness standards, which Dhawan has maintained despite having gone past the mid-30s, what will also help Gabbar’s case will be his experience of leading at the highest level.
Dhawan had led the Indian team in their white-ball tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year. This wasn’t the world-beating side comprising of Rohit, Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, etc, but a team comprising mainly fringe players who were fighting for a place in the T20 World Cup 2021 squad.
To his credit, Dhawan led what one could call an ‘India B’ side to a 2-1 series win over the hosts in the one-day leg, while going down fighting 1-2 in the T20Is in which the visiting side was ravaged with positive COVID cases and could barely field an XI.
The stint might not have earned Dhawan a spot in India’s squad for the T20 World Cup, in which they failed to reach the semis after losing to Pakistan and New Zealand, but the leadership groups will be taking a closer look at this captaincy assignment along with his rich vein of form in recent editions of the tournament.
Dhawan might be without a franchise at the moment, and his hopes of international cricket look dim after the emergence of KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Shaw and several other opening combinations recently. But Gabbar is far from done as far as the IPL goes, and still has plenty to contribute in a variety of roles. Guiding one of the new franchises to a solid start could just be the kind of legacy that he would want to leave behind in addition to the plethora of accomplishments.