Shikhar Dhawan, Punjab Kings batter, joined Virat Kohli in the 6000 runs club in IPL in a game against Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday. Dhawan, playing his 200th game in the T20 league, tapped a good length ball in front of the point and strolled across for a single in the first delivery of the second over, bowled by CSK’s Maheesh Theekshana to reach the landmark figure.
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Kohli is the highest run-scorer in IPL, with 6402 runs. Dhawan (6000*), Rohit Sharma (5764), David Warner (5663) and Suresh Raina (5528) completed the list of top five run-scorers in IPL history.
Dhawan holds the record for hitting the most boundaries – 675 – in the cash-rich league. He has additionally scored 45 fifties in the IPL, which is second only to David Warner’s 52.
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Out of the selectors’ favour, Dhawan would definitely like to make a strong case for himself ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year by making the best use of the remaining matches of the IPL 2022. Since the 2019 edition, Dhawan has scored 500-plus runs in each edition of the IPL.
In IPL 2022, Dhawan has had a dismal outing so far with 214 runs from seven matches.
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Dhawan, who is playing for Punjab Kings this season after being released by Delhi Capitals, is a prolific run-scorer. Since 2008, he scored the runs at an average of 34.82. He hit two hundreds, with the highest score106 not out.
In the mega auction in February this year, PBKS won the bidding war for the veteran cricketer by shelling out Rs 8.5 crore. Dhawan had kept a base price at Rs. 2 crore.
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In IPL 2016, Dhawan slammed 501 runs for Sunrisers Hyderabad, who also won the tournament by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final. The team retained him for two more seasons.