Dhawan made his debut under the captaincy of MS Dhoni in 2013 and blossomed under the leadership of Virat Kohli, who also hails from Delhi and both played domestic cricket together for quite a while.
Dhawan was player of the tournament in ICC Champions Trophy 2013 and played a stellar part in getting India off to a victorious start in 2019 ODI World Cup.
In the match against Australia at The Oval on June 2019, Dhawan smashed a scintillating 117. Dhawan was hit on his left thumb by a Pat Cummins delivery early in his innings. He batted with some discomfort initially before settling down to hit 16 fours in his knock that came off 109 balls.
Dhawan became the fastest ever to complete 1000 ODI runs on English soil during his knock against Australia – 1101 runs in 19 games at an average of 64.76 and at a strike rate of 101.28.
India went on to score 352/5 and bowled out Australia for 316 to win the match by 36 runs.
This was Dhawan’s 17th ODI century and overall his third ODI World Cup hundred.
Dhawan’s century was India’s No. 27 ton – most by any team in World Cup history at that time.
With this century, Dhawan had joined the likes of Pakistan’s Ramiz Raza, Australia’s Matthew Hayden, West Indies’ Vivian Richards, Pakistan’s Saeed Anwar and Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya, who had three centuries each in the World Cup.
Apparently, the injury was more serious than it initially looked. While the team came down to Nottingham for the match against New Zealand, the opener was taken to Leeds for scans and to get expert medical advice.
Dhawan was then ruled out of the World Cup and replaced by Rishabh Pant.
Relive the knock here: