Back with a bang: Shikhar Dhawan reaped the rewards for reverting to his natural game

“When I experienced failure, I had a different kind of approach. I was more on the defensive mode but now I try to go and express myself out there and play my natural game. So that has worked for me. I try to back myself as much as possible.”

Those words came from Shikar Dhawan at the post-match media conference after scoring a brilliant 119 off only 123 balls on the first day of the Pallakele Test.

In the first game of the series the left-hander smashed 190 off just 168 balls. It was a coruscating display that recalled his very first test innings, a scarcely believable 187 off 174 balls in Chandigarh in March 2013 – an innings that stunned the cricket world.

Dream debut

The question then on many lips was: Where had he been hiding? He was, after all, 28 and had been playing for almost a decade when he made his debut. And anybody who could play like that ought to have been exposed at the highest level much earlier. No debutant before him had scored a faster Test hundred and there can’t have been many that played with such complete command.

His first boundary in that innings was a hint of what was to follow – an exquisite drive through the covers with the follow through halted early, showing the full face of the blade, right elbow pointed skyward. He would return to the cover area countless times throughout this remarkable innings, and generally played through the offside in a manner that could scarcely have been bettered by Sourav Ganguly. It was a high-class innings from a high-class player.

For sure, it was too much to expect that he would have maintained those heady heights. He has since sparkled in Tests on occasions, yet even he would agree he has not approached that level as often as he would have liked.

An average of 38.52 prior to the Sri Lanka series tells the tale of a batsman who has not quite achieved the consistency that would have made him somewhat satisfied and would have made his place secure. This was especially true since he was in a side replete with excellent batsmen, with other quite excellent ones waiting to step in should the incumbents falter.

Slump in form

And so it was not surprising or unwarranted when Dhawan eventually lost his place. But then serendipity smiled upon him and injury to Murali Vijay and illness to K.L. Rahul paved his way back to the opening spot for the Sri Lanka series. ‘I was holidaying in Hong Kong,’ he would say after receiving the man of the series trophy.

Dhawan has, so far at least, returned with a bang. It was not only the weight of the runs he scored, it was also the forthright way in which he scored them. This was the Dhawan of Chandigarh, 2013; the Dhawan who put the Australians to the sword; the Dhawan who shook the cricket world on debut and made them take notice.

The opener seemed to have found himself anew and what he offered at the press conference as explanation for his rejuvenation is a lesson that all sportsmen would do well to embrace.

Playing their “natural game” is not just a cliché sportsmen trot out from time to time to journalists, it is the usually the path to achieving optimum performance.

Dhawan’s previous response to failure, he indicated, was to eschew the normally aggressive methods that came naturally to him and focus more on defence. This means he stymied his instincts and retreated deeper into his own mind, striving to erect a barrier between himself and failure.

That approach has worked for some players. Steve Waugh, to name one famous example, was a wonderfully fluent stroke-player in his youth. Not only did he possess all the shots, he was also not unwilling to play them. Runs flowed aplenty during the 1989 Ashes tour in England, but by the time the 1990-91 version came round Waugh had lost his form and his place in the side. His response was to abandon the hook shot and reign in his vast range. He then went on to become one of the great batsmen of his generation.

But that approach doesn’t work in every case. Indeed, batsmen suppressing their natural instincts are more likely to fail than to succeed. Sports psychologists will tell you that athletes perform better when they’re relaxed and confident. A batsman too intent on going against his inclinations is basically reorganizing his game, altering the means by which he got to that level in the first place.

Staying true to his style

It is probably for this reason, for example, that batsmen who grow more defensive while approaching a break make themselves more susceptible to getting out. It is probably why the nightwatchman idea makes sense. A batsman entering the fray close to the end of play is likely to be overly defensive, and therefore vulnerable. In such circumstances, the tailender is probably as good a bet to survive as the top order player.

This is not to say that a batsman ought not to adjust his game according to the situation his team faces – flexibility is important. Tendulkar famously decided to delete the cover drive from his wide repertoire in Sydney in 2004 after needlessly, he thought, falling to the stroke in Melbourne. The result was 613 minutes at the crease for 241 runs without a single drive through the covers.

Yet a batsman should, as much as is possible, remain true to his natural game. It is no guarantee of success, but it does offer the player their best chance of scoring runs consistently. This is what Dhawan discovered to the good fortune of himself, his team, and cricket fans the world over.