Shikhar Dhawan-Rohit Sharma partnership has shown much promise to be among the best Indian openers in ODIs
Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma opening partnership has been a huge asset for India in the recent past. The left-right combination have all the right ingredients to be among the most successful opening combination in One-Day Internationals: running between the wickets, shot selection and ability to construct huge partnerships. And they are both destructive.
Rohit Sharma (left) and Shikhar Dhawan were involved in a 176-run partnership for the first wicket in the second ODI against Australia at Jaipur on Wednesday © PTI
By Sarang Bhalerao
Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma opening partnership has been a huge asset for India in the recent past. The left-right combination have all the right ingredients to be among the most successful opening combination in One-Day Internationals: running between the wickets, shot selection and ability to construct huge partnerships. And they are both destructive.
The Indian opening partnerships over the few years have been the talking point because of their ability to take the game away from the opposition in a matter of few overs. When Sachin Tendulkar opened the batting for the first time in 1994 he presented a new dimension to the batting all-together. The 15-over field restriction rule was taken advantage of. Tendulkar, over the years, stitched memorable partnerships with Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag.
List of the top Indian opening partnerships
| Partnership | I | R | HS | Ave | 100s | 50s | |
| 1 | Ganguly-Tendulkar | 136 | 6609 | 258 | 49.32 | 21 | 23 |
| 2 | Sehwag-Tendulkar | 93 | 3919 | 182 | 42.13 | 12 | 18 |
| 3 | Gambhir-Sehwag | 38 | 1870 | 201* | 50.54 | 5 | 7 |
| 4 | Gavaskar-Srikkanth | 55 | 1680 | 136 | 30.54 | 2 | 11 |
| 5 | Ganguly-Sehwag | 43 | 1625 | 196 | 39.63 | 5 | 6 |
| 6 | Jadeja-Tendulkar | 22 | 1315 | 176 | 59.77 | 5 | 7 |
| 7 | Shastri-Srikkanth | 32 | 1135 | 188 | 35.46 | 3 | 5 |
| 8 | Dhawan-Rohit | 15 | 849 | 176 | 56.6 | 4 | 2 |
As one can see, Tendulkar has been involved in three of the top eight partnerships. In terms of average, his partnership with Jadeja yielded almost 59 per innings. Dhawan and Rohit are eighth on the list, but it’s still early days; they have opened the batting just 15 times, but have registered four century stands and two half-century partnership in that period.
As they say good start is half the battle won. The opening partnership is of paramount importance as the solid foundation helps the middle-order immensely.
List of the top Indian opening partnerships in wins
| Partnership | I | R | Ave | Overall | Deviation | % wins | %runs in wins | |
| 1 | Ganguly-Tendulkar | 65 | 4281 | 67.95 | 49.32 | 18.63 | 47.79 | 64.77 |
| 2 | Sehwag-Tendulkar | 52 | 2648 | 50.92 | 42.13 | 8.79 | 55.91 | 67.56 |
| 3 | Gambhir-Sehwag | 25 | 1519 | 63.29 | 50.54 | 12.75 | 65.78 | 81.22 |
| 4 | Ganguly-Sehwag | 22 | 1164 | 58.2 | 39.63 | 18.57 | 51.16 | 71.63 |
| 5 | Gavaskar-Srikkanth | 31 | 1158 | 37.35 | 30.54 | 6.81 | 56.36 | 68.92 |
| 6 | Jadeja-Tendulkar | 12 | 1025 | 85.41 | 59.77 | 25.64 | 54.54 | 77.95 |
| 7 | Dhawan-Rohit | 12 | 786 | 65.5 | 56.6 | 8.9 | 80 | 92.58 |
As you can see when Dhawan and Rohit have scored almost 93 per cent of their total runs in winning cause. India have won 80 per cent of the matches (12 out of 15) when the duo has opened. They average about nine per cent points higher when India wins.
The most drastic deviation in terms of averages has been observed in Tendulkar-Ajay Jadeja partnership. They averaged nearly 86 when India won and otherwise they scored about 60 runs per innings.
(Sarang Bhalerao hails from a family of doctors, but did his engineering. He then dumped a career in IT with Infosys to follow his heart and passion and became a writer with CricketCountry. A voracious reader, Sarang aspires to beat Google with his knowledge of the game! You can follow him on Twitter here)
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