In the first ODI of India vs New Zealand, the victory was tasted by the latter however, the skipper of men in blue Shikhar Dhawan achieved an interesting feat. He became the seventh player from India to score 12000 plus runs in List A Cricket. Earlier, players like Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar also achieved this feat. In the game, he mustered 72 runs off 77 deliveries.
He needed only 47 runs to achieve this feat but ended up scoring more than fifty runs. This was his 39th half-century in ODI cricket and his ODI career has been 47 centuries.
He opened the innings with Shubman Gill and gave India an amazing start. Gill mustered a half-century too and Shreyas Iyer shined in the middle overs. Washington Sundar’s performance helped them post a total of 306 runs in 50 overs.
India lost the game but Shawan revealed where he thinks the team went wrong. He accepted the bowlers could not execute their game properly.
“We felt good about the total. First 10-15 overs the ball did a lot. It’s a bit different than other grounds. Have to plan accordingly. Today we’ve bowled short of length and Latham attacked us there. That’s where he took the game away from us especially in the 40th over. That’s where the momentum shifted.” he said
Dhawan, who debuted in List A in 2004, is still playing well in the 50-over format. In 161 ODIs, he scored 6672 runs.
The elite list is topped by Sachin Tendulkar for scoring 21999 runs in 551 matches. Sourav Ganguly at the second place where he scored 15622 runs in 437 matches, and his contemporary Rahul Dravid scored 15271 runs in 449 matches. Virat Kohli has piled up 13786 in 296 innings. The other two players on the list are MS Dhoni (13353 in 423 matches) and Yuvraj Singh (12633 in 423 matches). Shikhar Dhawan in his last ODI mustered 12025 runs in 297 games.
