India did not win the Under 19 World Cup in 2004, losing to Pakistan in the semi-final. Within three years, however, five players from that squad – Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Rudra Pratap Singh, Robin Uthappa and VRV Singh – had represented the senior side.
For the captain of the team, Ambati Rayudu, the wait lasted nearly a decade. For the man who was the tournament’s leading scorer with 505 runs, it also took nearly as long to establish himself in the senior XI.
Shikhar Dhawan does not like looking back.
“What’s gone is gone,” he said when he was asked before the World Cup began whether his performances in the 2013 Champions Trophy – he was man of the tournament – would serve as a source of inspiration.
“Of course, I took lots of confidence from that, but I’ve gone through some hard patches as well. I’ve cherished those, too, the way I cherish the good times. I know things can change any time, so I just like to go with the flow.”
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For more than half a decade, Dhawan perplexed those who watched him in domestic cricket. That he had the talent was obvious. Whether he had the determination to push himself was another matter. Two things then happened in quick succession that helped him take the big leap.
In early 2008, Virat Kohli, his Delhi teammate, led India’s Under 19s to the World Cup. Within months, he had made his India debut. It was not just his contemporaries who had left Dhawan behind. Even those years his junior had passed him by.
Even more pivotal was Facebook. Ayesha Mukherjee, a British-Bengali who lived in Melbourne, was a friend of Harbhajan Singh on the social networking site. Dhawan sent her a friend request.
By late 2009, the two were engaged, even though his family was initially unhappy about her being 12 years his senior.
Dhawan concedes that Mukherjee, whom he married in 2012, settled him down and got his focus right. By early 2013, he had eviscerated Australia on his Test debut in Mohali.
“I cleaned my son’s poo,” Dhawan said with a grin when asked what he did during the week’s break the Indian squad had before the World Cup began.
“That was how I spent my time, back with my kids [Mukherjee has two girls from her first marriage] and my wife. At the same time, I did a bit of training to get my body right.”
Against Pakistan, in a match where many of those wearing green appeared nervous and inhibited, Dhawan was coolness personified. Before a mix-up with Kohli saw him being run out for 73 (on 76 balls), he had been the more fluent partner in a 129-run stand that set up the game for India.
Before the match, much had been made of his lack of runs in Australia, across all formats, but Dhawan, who trains with Greg Shipperd and others in Melbourne, had shown no signs of worry.
“I know my game pretty well,” he said a week before the Pakistan game. “Of course, it’s a learning process, and I’m always open to new things. I always keep learning and moving forward. Whenever I look back, I only see how far I have come in my life.”
Dhawan’s importance to India’s campaign cannot be overstated. They have won 32 and lost just 18 of the 54 ODIs in which he has played.
In the wins, he averages 57.1 at a strike rate of 96.18. He has scored six hundreds and 10 half-centuries in those 32 games.
India have never beaten South Africa in a World Cup, though the games were spread too far apart (1992, 1999 and 2011) for talk of a streak.
Their recent record against the Proteas in ICC events is excellent, with wins at the World Twenty20 in 2012 and 2014 sandwiching success at the Champions Trophy in 2013.
In Cardiff, it was Dhawan who led the way with a dazzling 80-ball hundred that was the spur for India to pile up 331. Dale Steyn, who has been batting the flu in Melbourne, missed the game.
Like the men he replaced at the top of the order, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, Dhawan is well aware that India’s batting line-up can be close to unstoppable once a solid foundation is in place. The man who does not look back will truly be looking ahead to this litmus test of a contest.
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