Former cricketer Mohammad Kaif has said that Shikhar Dhawan is the ‘Khalifa of T20’ and the Punjab Kings opener deserves to play in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. Shikhar on Monday became only the second Indian batsman after Virat Kohli to score 6000 runs in the Indian Premier League. After this, Kaif praised him on Twitter.
Kaif tweeted, “Dhoni is Thala, Kohli is King and Shikhar? 6000 IPL runs and performance under pressure. He is the Khalifa of T20. They should play T20 World Cup. Don’t ask me where If I were the selector, I would have told you.”
Dhawan has made a great opening for Team India with Rohit Sharma in ODI cricket. The Chetan Sharma-led selection committee ignored him while announcing the squad for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021. Keeping the match-winning player out of the team has been the subject of much discussion for the Men in Blue.
Shikhar Dhawan has been consistently performing well in the IPL. In IPL 2022, he is third in the race for the Orange Cap. In eight innings he has scored 302 not out 88 is his top score. During this, his average is 43.14 and strike rate is 132.45. Dhawan started his IPL career with Delhi Daredevils and scored a match-winning fifty on his IPL debut. Thereafter, he played for Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians before returning to the Delhi team in 2019.
In 2021, Shikhar scored 587 runs for Delhi Capitals in 16 matches and played a key role in taking DC to the final in 2020, scoring 618 runs, including two centuries and four fifties. Last year he scored 521 runs with a best performance of 97 not out. It is worth noting that with the T20 World Cup being held in Australia later this year, it will be interesting to see whether Shikhar Dhawan gets selected in Team India or not.