The left-hander Shikhar Dhawan, and right-hander Shubman Gill has tasted success in almost all the matches they've opened together starting from the West Indies tour. A recent example when the duo stitched an unbeaten 192-run partnership against Zimbabwe in the first ODI in Harare.
Though Dhawan may no longer be part of India's T20I and Test squads but the veteran India opener keeps proving every series why he is an indispensable part of the ODI set-up.
Dhawan increased his run total to 469 with an unbeaten 81 against Zimbabwe in the series opener. Dhawan hit his 38th ODI fifty as India cruised to a 10-wicket victory after chasing 190 in 30.5 overs. Dhawan's third half-century in four innings, following scores of 97 and 58 against the West Indies.
A look at his Instagram posts and the way he bats and conducts himself on the field are a testament to it. During a post-match interaction, Dhawan was asked about his experience of batting with young Shubman Gill, to which he said, "Absolutely, I am enjoying batting with a youngster and feel like one as well". Watching the India opener in such great spirits, former India batter Ajay Jadeja explain how the left-handed batter showed traits of the former India captain in his batting.
"There will always be a period where you are re-energised and you've got to change your game because the next generation is always quicker, faster, smarter. And they always push you. A good example is going back to Sachin Tendulkar. Think of him when Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni and all these guys came in. He did exactly the same thing in his career. He had to reinvent himself, changed the pace at which he was playing the game to keep up with the younger lot," Jadeja said during the post-match show.
"You've got to catch up. Sometimes as a senior player you tend to take it easy, you've been around for so long. You stagnate at a certain place. But when that next generation comes, it starts pushing you. The first time was when Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly came in and the next change was when Yuvraj, Sehwag and Dhoni came in. And you can see the same with Shikhar."
"In Zimbabwe had any little hope of defending their total, it was in the first 10 overs, it was shut soon. It was in two parts, which tells you the maturity of these two batters. They understood what was required what needed to be done at which stage of the innings. Dhawan was the senior partner, he knew what to do. But what I enjoyed was watching Shubman Gill; he is only 22 years old but he seems to possess an experienced player's head on his shoulders," Jadeja said.
"Generally, when you are young and you get excited, you want to outclass the opponent, the opposition. You want to show 'look I am a young man. Here he took his time, waited and once he felt that he was comfortable, he raised past Shikhar Dhawan. And this tells you about this young generation, how they think about the game. They may be 22, but have the experience of a 35-year-old."e