Rohit Sharma is a confirmed opener in all formats. He will be the first choice for the T20 world cup 2022. But the question is who will be the second opener. Indian selectors have many options like KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, etc but we all forgot Shikhar Dhawan who is performing brilliantly in IPL for the past few seasons. So, in this article, we will see a comparison between KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan based on legit stats in T20Is.
- Innings – Shikhar Dhawan has played in 66 T20I innings whereas KL Rahul has played in 52 T20I innings. So, in terms of innings, Rahul has played in 14 innings less than Dhawan.
- Runs – even though Rahul has played 14 innings less than Dhawan, he is ahead of Dhawan in terms of runs. Rahul has scored 1831 runs and Dhawan has scored 1759 runs.
- Average – Dhawan’s T20I average is very low and that is why he was never a first-choice opener in T20Is. Dhawan has an average of 27.92 and Rahul has an average of 40.69.
- Strike Rate – we all know Rahul is more attacking than Dhawan and we can see this thing in the strike rate stat where Rahul’s strike rate in T20Is is 142.5 and Dhawan’s strike rate is 126.4.
- Fours and Sixes – Dhawan always likes to play shorts along the ground. We have hardly seen him playing risky shorts he always relies on his timing and that’s why Dhawan has more fours 191 than Rahul who has 164 fours. But when it comes to sixes Rahul is ahead of Dhawan. Rahul has 73 sixes and Dhawan has 50 sixes.
- Half-centuries and centuries – in both centuries and half centuries, Rahul is ahead of Dhawan. Rahul has 2 centuries whereas Dhawan has zero. Rahul has 16 half-centuries whereas Dhawan has 11.
So based on the above stats we can conclude that Rahul is a better option than Shikhar Dhawan in T20Is. The only thing which goes positive for Dhawan is he is left-handed and shares great chemistry with captain Rohit Sharma. No doubt Dhawan is a fantastic player but when it comes to T20Is Rahul is ahead of him.
