“You will go back to gambling”: Here’s why Shikhar Dhawan used to sledge David Warner with gambling jibe

Team India’s stand-in skipper not so long ago in the ODI format, and their designated opening batter for quite a many years, Shikhar Dhawan currently finds himself out of the Indian team squad across formats.

While his average of 34.40 across 22 ODIs last year might have been acceptable enough, it was his strike rate of  74.21 which perhaps led the selectors make up their minds to focus on the young set of batters who have been much impressive in the limited opportunities that had come their way in the recent past.

Moreover, with Shubman Gill presently going through his best phase in the format at the opening slot, being the highest scorer in the same amongst Indians since the beginning of 2022, it is highly unlikely he will make it to the squad in either the upcoming Asia Cup or the World Cup later this year.

However, the happy and gay figure that he has always been, Dhawan does not really worry about his place in the side, and has mentioned the same quite a few times since the past three years or so.

Shikhar Dhawan used to sledge David Warner with gambling jibe

Showcasing his jolly nature yet again was Dhawan during an interaction with a popular Indian media outlet ‘The Lallantop’. Amongst the many topics he presented his candid views on, he also recalled how the likes of David Warner and James Anderson used to go about with their on-field sledging especially while playing Tests.

Citing Warner’s example, Dhawan revealed how the Aussie opener tried to break him mentally while batting, by remarking how his place in the side was not certain or that he is likely to be dropped from the team.

Dhawan then opened up on how he also used to give it back to him via certain jibes and went on to reveal that Warner was in fact a gambling addict at one point in time.

“I also used to sledge him back. He was a gambling addict at one time. So I used to press that nerve. I would reply, ‘you will go back to gambling, you will become an addict again. You will sell everything’. See, it’s a rivalry! These things keep happening,” Dhawan remarked.