Delhi Capitals have taken the tournament by storm in the previous two tournaments and credit must be given to captain Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant along with a few other factors such as Ricky Ponting taking over as coach.
One factor which has been underrated so far has been the addition of the swashbuckling opener Shikhar Dhawan to what is his hometown in Delhi. Shikhar, a Delhi boy definitely has a lot of motivation to perform for his team and in the first half of the IPL 2021, we have seen that Shikhar has been batting perhaps at a level where haven’t seen him bat for very long. What gives him even more confidence has been his form for the national team not just as a player but he also got a chance to captain the team this time around. The captaincy seemed to sit well on his shoulder as he performed exquisitely better in the series. The series albeit did not go on well for the team as they lost the T20 series by 1- 2. The big asterisk in that series was the fact that Indians did not send their top team in the Sri Lanka series. Shikhar Dhawan did win the ODI Series though as captain in Sri Lanka and that was awesome considering the that they were playing with what can be called as the second or third string side of the Indian Cricket squad
The IPL 2021 edition is one of the more unique ones in the history of the tournament as it is going to be played in a couple of phases. The second phase of the tournament is going to begin on the 19th of September. The first half saw the DC team dominating the tournament and at the forefront of that dominance was the IPL leading run scorer in Shikhar Dhawan.
Shikhar is one of the players who has often gone about his business quietly without getting much attention about it. This however doesn’t take away from the superstar that he has been in the IPL. He has scored 380 runs in the 8 games that have been played so far in the tournament. He has scored at an average of 54. 28 and also scored at a strike rate of 134.27. This is also going to be aided by the fact that the IPL is going to be held in the United Arab Emirates. UAE was a happy hunting ground for the opener in the last year with an average 44.14 as an average and a strike rate of 144. 73 in the tournament so it is safe to say that he is going to be one of the key factors behind Delhi Capitals winning their first IPL if it were to happen.
Shikhar has also been guiding other players around him and has helped the side grow organically with the likes of Prithvi Shaw, Avesh Khan and Rishabh Pant growing meteorically under his wing. He was handed the reigns of captaincy but it did not suit him. He has since then been a bit of an advisor on the field being an experienced and senior statesman. As far as his IPL stats are concerned, he has scored 5577 runs overall and has scored at a strike rate of close to 127 and an average of 35. The Delhi Capitals team is going to bank on him giving them starts. They reached the final last time around and would like to go one step further in this tournament and go on and get the trophy.