Before India's tour of England this winter, opener Shikhar Dhawan was in the MCG nets facing throw-downs from Victorian coaches Greg Shipperd and Simon Helmot. Residents of Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs are half a chance to spot him shopping at Fountain Gate but most are probably oblivious to the fact a superstar Indian cricketer is living in their midst.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Chris Rogers is not the only adopted Victorian getting ready for the Boxing Day Test, because Dhawan – the 29-year-old batsman with the theatrical moustache, tattooed biceps and swashbuckling strokeplay – has two homes. One is in Delhi, the other in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, where he lives with his wife Aesha and their family when he is not on tour with the Indian team or playing in the Indian Premier League.
Aesha has British and Bengali heritage but was living in Australia with her two daughters when she and Dhawan were introduced on Facebook. She is a former amateur boxer whose interest in cricket has been known to extend to having him throw balls to her after play in domestic Ranji Trophy games in India. They married in 2012 and have a son, Zoravar, who turns one in January.
Dhawan, of course, is known to Australians for his startling 187 against them in Mohali during the 2013 tour from hell. His 85-ball hundred was the fastest on debut since the balls-faced category was recorded and all the more memorable for the sheer audacity of the shots he played.
"He's an exceptional strokeplayer, both sides of the wicket," says Helmot, who has worked with Dhawan at Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL for the past two years. Their wives and children have become good friends and Helmot once spent a whole evening searching the neighbourhood for the Dhawans' pet dog, which bolted out the front door when they turned up for dinner. It turned up the next day at the Cranbourne pound.
"Like a lot of Indian batters who've come here on this tour, he has no fear about the short-pitched ball ... He's certainly been heavily influenced by IPL cricket, because that hundred on debut, that was at IPL pace."
Dhawan's maiden Test tour of Australia has so far been an eventful one. He's had a couple of starts, one of which was nipped in the bud by a bad umpiring decision in Adelaide. He's been fined for marching in from the slips to remonstrate with David Warner, his IPL teammate, also at Adelaide Oval. And he was the central figure in the dressing room "unrest" that preceded India's second-innings implosion at the Gabba.
He was injured in the nets before play, but somehow the team didn't know until five minutes before play that he would be unfit to resume his innings. One Indian newspaper reported that Virat Kohli, who batted in his place, clashed with Dhawan after he, Kohli, was dismissed cheaply by Mitchell Johnson. Team director Ravi Shastri reportedly had to step in to cool tempers. Another paper quoted a BCCI official questioning the seriousness of the injury. Dhawan has recovered from his bruised wrist but there is even a suspicion he won't play in the Boxing Day Test, despite emerging later in the innings to complete a dogged 81.
Dhawan's rock star appearance matches his extroverted game but he's said to be a quiet person. He enjoys the open spaces of Australian suburbia, a change from the crowded roads of Delhi where he and other Indian cricketers are mobbed wherever they go. He looked destined for stardom at the Under-19 World Cup in 2004, peeling off a record 505 runs for the tournament, but it took nine years of first-class cricket to break into the Test team.
"Everything happens at the right time. If I would have got this call a few years back, it wouldn't have been good for me. I was very irresponsible then," he said in 2013, before his Test debut.
In the same interview he credited Aesha with turning his career around. "I owe my maturity to her. She taught me that failures teach a person a lot more than success. It makes sense, considering I have learnt from mistakes. Success only goes to the head. It is true, the best way to improve a man is by giving him responsibility."
Dhawan's one-day career blossomed in 2013 but he was dropped from the Test side during this year's tour of England.
It's no surprise that he feels comfortable in Australia, given his connections. He also captained an Emerging Players Tour of Australia in 2011, which included Ajinkya Rahane and Varun Aaron.
Helmot believes Dhawan is a vital part of the Indian batting line-up because of his ability to score quickly in the Virender Sehwag and David Warner mould.
"It's like fighting fire with fire," he said. "The Australians are batting at four an over at the moment. He and [Murali] Vijay and others are able to bat at the same pace and [Cheteshwar Pujara] can provide the backbone of the innings.
"He's an outgoing guy. He's bold and he's confident, but he's also very focused on being the best cricketer he can be."
