Dhawan pieces together batting jigsaw by 'going back to basics'

The third day of India's training camp in Bangalore ahead of their West Indies sojourn was another intense affair, with an emphasis firmly on skill-sets. Offspinner R Ashwin, returning from personal leave, and opener Shikhar Dhawan were primarily in focus, even as the rest of the squad along with a few members of the India A and Karnataka team were also in attendance at the National Cricket Academy.

Ashwin, among the first few to come out for training, had a brief conversation with Anil Kumble, his role model, before rolling his arm over to a catching man to loosen his stiff shoulders. He then sent down a string of deliveries at an empty net. Once all systems were go, he began bowling at the batsmen. His variations particularly stoked the interest of everyone present early on, before the attention shifted to Dhawan.

The opening batsman started off with a solid session against Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur, the Mumbai pacer, on the centre pitch. Once he was satisfied with his brief stint in the middle, Dhawan came over for throwdowns from batting coach Sanjay Bangar and Raghavendra, the team's throwdown specialist.

Shortly into the session, Bangar placed a fourth stump, a few feet outside off, next to where Dhawan was standing. The positioning was such that the stump was within Dhawan's eyeline. It seemed as if there was a conscious plan to work on his feet movement and judgement outside off stump to away-going deliveries hurled at a fair clip.

The video analyst set up a camera around where Dhawan was batting to record his trigger movements and his stance. After a few deliveries, Dhawan approached Bangar for an opinion on his wrist position while pressing forward. While returning to his mark, he looked at a group of journalists trying to decipher what he was trying to do. "Learning the basics," he laughed.

It seemed as though the plan was to eliminate his off-side weakness against the away-going delivery. "As a batsman, sometimes, your head position generally gives you a clear indication of where your off stump is," Amol Muzumdar, the former Mumbai batsman and highest-capped Ranji Trophy cricketer, explained to ESPNcricinfo. "Generally, with a good stance, me being a right-hander, your right eye generally serves as an indication that that's your off stump.

"The method could act as two things. One is to know where your off stump is, and two, probably the bat, in your backlift, is going a little bit away. Then you get an immediate feedback that your bat is going away, or know where your off stump is."

Dhawan's method was particularly intriguing, given his travails outside the off stump in Test matches. His general tendency to attack the ball has caused problems, which were exacerbated when India toured England in 2014. Dhawan was either caught behind or in the slips in three out of six innings, before being dropped for the final two Tests. The problem resurfaced in Australia later that year, where Dhawan also struggled against the white ball, which he generally is more comfortable facing.

Aakash Chopra, Dhawan's former Delhi team-mate, felt it was a case of a lack of footwork creating doubts in his mind. "It's a combination of, I think, two-three things," he explained. "Obviously, his feet don't move, and if your feet don't move, you end up playing away from the body anyway. It gets rewarded in the shorter formats, so you don't even think there is any need to change. And even though he likes to drive, when the ball is really full, he is on to his front foot and drives it well. But he gets stuck on the crease to anything that is in the in-between length. And even while his intention is to play from the crease, he doesn't really go onto the back foot, and instead just stays there and flashes outside off."

Could it be an issue with his stance, perhaps? Chopra didn't think so. "It's not that it's crouched or it's too wide. It's not too wide, neither too narrow in terms of his feet positioning, so it's not that he's falling over," he observed. "But he definitely has to get into the habit of leaving balls outside off. T20 cricket and limited-overs cricket tell you to play away from the body; playing away from the body rewards you because if you get too close, you get cramped (for room)."

Questions of whether Dhawan is temperamentally suited for Test cricket have been asked frequently, given the left-hander's innate desire to attack. Muzumdar, however, felt that such batsmen were needed in a Test team. "Not everyone is cut out like M Vijay, who takes his time and leaves the ball outside off stump very well, which in the last 24 months he has been doing superbly for India," he said. "KL Rahul, again, is solid in defence, so is someone like Pujara. So there is place for an attacking player who would take on the opposition. I think he is cut out for international cricket. We've seen his success and I think he is temperamentally built for international cricket."

Dhawan's supreme confidence in his ability has been known right from his domestic days and is one of the distinct aspects of his game. Has that confidence, perhaps, translated to excessive flamboyance in Test cricket?

"It could happen, there is no denying that," Muzumdar said. "Again, it's upto the high-performance athlete who would use that confidence to his own benefit. I think it depends, sometimes you may feel it's overconfidence, but that's the way he has played cricket ever since he announced himself against Australia at Mohali with that swashbuckling hundred in his debut match. Confidence is a double-edged sword."

But when that confidence works in his favour and he is at ease with himself and his surroundings, Dhawan's batting makes for one of the most visceral joys in cricket. At the nets, he nailed a lovely straight drive that elicited a hurried leap from Bangar. Dhawan walked over to the coach and the two shared a laugh and patted each other on the back. Pleased with himself, a sprightly Dhawan strutted back to his crease humming a tune or two before gearing up to face the next ball. All seemed well with his world.