24th August will be a sorrowful day for Indian cricket fans as former India opener Shikhar Dhawan has announced his retirement from international and domestic cricket. The talented cricketer famously known by his nickname Gabbar had 269 international games for India giving the opponents a hard time. The cricketer has posted a video on social media announcing this heartbreaking news. Let’s dig into some more details about this segment.
Shikhar Dhawan’s statement on his retirement
On 24 August 2024, the former opener shared a video of himself sharing the decision with his fans.
The 38-year-old begins the video by saying, “I am standing at that juncture in my life where I can only see the past memories. My dream was always to play for India and it came true and for that I’m grateful to a lot of people. My family, my coaches Tarak Sinha and Madan Sharma, under whom I learnt to play cricket. Also my team, the people I played with for years. I got another family in them. I got fame and fortune and the love of everyone.”
Dhawan also noted, “But it’s important to turn the page to move forward in life and that’s why I am announcing my retirement from international and domestic cricket.”
The cricketer ended the video by saying, “And now that I’m concluding my cricket journey, there’s peace in my heart, that I played a lot for my country. I’m grateful to all my fans for all the love. I’ve told myself don’t feel sad that you won’t play for India anymore, but feel happy that you played for the country.”
Let’s check out the incredible career of this once-in-a-lifetime player.
Look back at the extraordinary cricket journey of Dhawan
The player has a prominent international career of 12 long years in which he scored 2315 runs at an average of 40.61 in Tests, 1759 runs at 27.92 in T20Is, and mostly showed his magic in the ODI format with scoring 6793 runs at 44.11.
In his inspiring career, Dhawan featured in 34 Tests, 167 ODIs, and 68 T20Is.
After coming into the scene in the 2004 ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, he gained the attention of cricket fans after scoring the highest runs of 505 in the tournament. Seven years later he made his debut in the Indian national team in an ODI against Australia in Visakhapatnam.
However, it was after his smashing Test debut with a fastest century in 2013 that Dhawan began to be considered as the future of Indian cricket.
Later, he successfully achieved the title of ODI King after helping India win the Champions Trophy 2013 title with his highest-scorer 363 runs at 90.75.
He is among the only eight batters to score 5000+ runs at a 40-plus average and a 90-plus strike rate in Men’s ODI history.
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