Familiarity with Rashid Khan's bowling was advantageous, reveals Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan has been of the opinion that playing IPL regularly has its own advantages and quite evidently it was seen on Thursday when the southpaw was seen scoring a blistering 107 off 96 balls, coming hard especially on his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate Rashid Khan. He later admitted that playing in the nets with the mystery bowlers for two years gave him a certain edge.

“One thing (advantage) is that I have faced him (Rashid) in the nets for the past two years as we play for the same IPL team. I am used to bowling and that was an advantage for sure. It helped me,” Dhawan revealed in a post match press conference.

With Dhawan becoming the first Indian to score a century in the first session, India went on to establish a strong 347/6 at the end of the first day, sitting firmly on the driver seat. Unlike his opening partner, Murali Vijay, in the longest format Dhawan has always believed that offence is the best form of defence and was seen implementing it from the start of the innings that gave India a blistering start.

“I have full faith in my process and if you look at my earlier Test matches in Sri Lanka (barring the odd failure in Cape Town), I play with the same positive mindset. I was in good touch during IPL and wanted to continue with it,” Dhawan said.

“Every player has his own game and a team is made up of different characters. My game is different from Vijay’s. Each one of us has different qualities. There are a few who love to step out and hit while a few play spinners from within the crease. Each one has his own plan. My strength is to step out and I played accordingly,” Dhawan added.