India’s Shikhar Dhawan hammered a ton in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in brilliant innings against reigning champions Australia at The Oval on Sunday. Notably, this was Dhawan’s third World Cup hundred, making him the only Indian player to do so after Sachin Tendulkar (6) and Sourav Ganguly (4). The left-handed opening batsman of the Indian National Cricket Team was declared the Man of the Match for his brilliant best innings.

Listed below are some unknown facts about the sportsman, his performance in ICC (World Cup and Champions Trophy) and other big tournaments. To begin with, did you know Dhawan boasts of the second-highest average (65.15) in world tournaments in history (min. 500 runs)? He is second to Australia’s Andrew Symonds (76.66) followed by ODI legends Saeed Anwar (63.36), Vivian Richards (63.31) and Ganguly (61.88). For those wondering, Sachin Tendulkar’s average was 52.28.

Nicknamed as ‘Gabbar’ and ‘Jaat-ji’ by his fans, Dhawan is the only Indian batsman to swiftly touch the 2000 and 3000 runs mark in ODIs.

Dhawan also has the record of scoring the maximum runs in a single U-19 World Cup under his belt. He put a score of 505 on the board in 2005.

Shikhar Dhawan made his Test debut against Australia in 2013 at Mohali. He registered the fastest hundred by any batsman in a five-day format debut.

After Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid, Dhawan is the third Indian opening batsman to score two successive hundreds in away Test matches. He achieved this feat by hitting a century against Sri Bangladesh (173) in June 2015 and against Sri Lanka (134) in August 2015.

Dhawan loves bikes! He often comes for practice sessions riding his swanky mean machines. Besides, he sports several tattoos including a leafless tree on his calf and a carpe diem one. He plans to get inked more!

Dhawan met his wife Ayesha (Aesha) Mukherjee on Facebook, through Harbhajan Singh. She is an Anglo-Indian (half-Bengali, half-British) sports enthusiast and an amateur boxer from Australia. The couple has three children: two daughters from Ayesha’s first marriage and a son together.

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In the meantime, watch Divyenndu Sharma and Patralekhaa’s unique story Badnaam Gali on ZEE5.