India captain Shikhar Dhawan, in a warm gesture, was seen sharing words of wisdom with the young Sri Lankan cricketers after the tourists’ T20I series loss 1-2 to the hosts on Thursday, July 29, in Colombo.
Sri Lanka defeated the COVID-19 hit depleted Indian cricket team by 7 wickets in the third and final T20I on Thursday to secure their first series win over India in 13 years across formats on Thursday in Colombo.
Notably, India only had 11 players available for the final two T20Is against Sri Lanka after 9 of their regular stars were forced to quarantine after Krunal Pandya tested positive for COVID-19.
After Sri Lanka won the T20I series, the young and inexperienced Lankan players huddled around Dhawan to learn about vastly experienced cricketer’s process and experiences.
Dhawan revealed when asked about the interaction with the Sri Lankan players after the game: “The SL boys wanted to know what’s my process, I was just sharing my experience. I hope they enjoyed listening to it. And, congratulations to the Sri Lankan team.”
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka was happy that the SL team got to pick his counterpart Shikhar Dhawan’s brains for a while and said the information passed on by the veteran cricketer to his players would be a key in their growth as international cricketers.
Shanaka said on interaction with Indian skipper, “Shikhar is a player who has played [for] 10 years and has a lot of experience. I asked him how he prepares himself and what was his game planning and situation handling which are very important. What he has to say about making game plans, and situation handling is something that's important for all of us to hear - for me as a captain, and the rest of the team.”
The skipper further added, “He's someone who's mastered even his breathing pattern. I thought if we could speak with a player like him, our players would get some sort of knowledge about how to raise our game. We get advice from our former players too, but this was a chance to hear from a current player with a lot of experience. I'm grateful to him for that chance.”
He also revealed that he had a brief conversation with India coach Rahul Dravid earlier in the series.
Shanaka signed off by saying, “I talked with Dravid about how the India players approach their innings. They are really positive from the moment they get into the ground, and I asked him a lot of the questions we also asked Shikhar.”
(With ESPNCricinfo Inputs)
