ICC World Cup 2019 | Fielding Shikhar Dhawan in slips might be challenging now, says R Sridhar

Shikhar Dhawan was hit on his thumb by a Pat Cummins delivery early on in his innings against Australia but continued to bat and even blasted a hundred. However, he did not return to the field in the second innings and it was revealed that he was out for three weeks, that is the next five games since then. The team management wanted to wait for the southpaw to recover and did not name a replacement, with Rishabh Pant coming in only as a cover.

India fielding coach R Sridhar now feels that it would be tough for Dhawan to take his usual slip position while fielding if he manages to make a comeback in the final league match against Sri Lanka or earlier. 

“Throwing won’t be a problem, but definitely there will be impact while fielding and catching, especially (since) he’s a slip fielder. If you know, he stands in the slips in the initial phase of the innings, that can be an issue. We’ll test him out with lighter balls first and gradually move on to the cricket ball and see how it goes from there, but, yeah, that will be a challenge,” he said, reported PTI.

Sridhar reckoned that the southpaw will be assessed in about another week’s time from now.

“Once we assess him, probably on tenth or 12th day, we’ll have to look - it’s his bottom hand (left) while batting. It’s not his dominant hand because he’s a (natural) right-hander,” he shared.

The Indian team is a great fielding unit but lacks the same muscle when it comes to direct hits. Ravindra Jadeja is probably the only player that can be recalled for his razor-sharp throws, something even the former first-class cricketer did not shy away from.

“That’s a very good observation. It is something which I have my eye on as well, and we practice a lot for that. I would say converting, whether it’s a run-out or not, converting one in three or four throws is a good conversion rate, in my opinion,” expressed the former Hyderabad player.

“Don’t judge me on that opinion, but picking up one out of four, you’re doing a good job as a direct-hit unit. But we failed to do that in the last game. We had over ten strikes, and we hit only once. In some days, we hit three out of five. That is one area we work hard on in every session,” Sridhar signed off.