Opinion Confident confessions

The chai had gone cold and the sun began its dive below the West Delhi horizon. But like a man in a confession box — his dark glasses playing a veiling — Shikhar Dhawan disclosed his sins into this semi-columnist’s dictaphone. “Consistency was a problem; There was immense sadness; I’ve cleaned my head out; Don’t want to let myself down again.” Dhawan,from time to time,also slipped in those regular PR-trained cliches. “Hard work; God’s grace; Destiny; Dream come true.” Every time,he would smile defensively. Then,with the hand that didn’t hold the soggy paper cup,Dhawan pushed aside the recorder and said: “Dekh bhai. I may ruin this chance just like I ruined my earlier chances. Who is to tell? This is cricket after all and failure is a big part of it. But I know one thing for sure — I have never in my life been more ready to succeed or confident of my game.”

This was in February,a week before the start of the Test series against Australia. Dhawan,having just turned 27,was included in the squad in place of state-mate Gautam Gambhir. He would get his chance in place of another state-mate Virender Sehwag. But three years before that,Dhawan had made and blown his first stint as an international cricketer in the one-day team,with a duck on debut and two other single-digit scores in five games. “I was just happy to be there then. Now I know what it takes to score runs,” he said. “Strokes I’ve always had. Confidence,like I said,I’ve only got it now.”

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Those strokes,the on-the-walk cover drive and the mid-air upper cuts,he possessed since his pre-teen days. They got him buckets of runs at the U-19 level and fetched him a few centuries in the Ranji Trophy. But international cricket was different,and Dhawan,tortured by his failures,knew it. “If given a chance again,I would like to play my strokes with confidence,without worrying about the situation or the pressure. You see,confidence will get me runs. Runs will get me chances. Chances will give me more confidence.”

That predicted cycle has snowballed into epic proportions. In his only Test innings to date,he smacked a record breaking 187. And in 14 ODIs since,Dhawan has hit three centuries (two in two in the Champions Trophy) and now a double hundred in List A cricket — 248,the second highest score of all time. “There are two ways to play the strokes you know in international cricket. I have only played my shots with the adrenaline that comes with the awe of representing India so far,” he had said before his Test debut. “Now I will play them with the confidence of being an India cricketer.”

(Aditya is a principal correspondent based in New Delhi.) aditya.iyer@expressindia.com