It has been a record-breaking day for Shikhar Dhawan. At the start of the ODI series opener against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Sunday, he became the oldest Indian to make his ODI captaincy debut. Later in the same evening, he notched up three milestones en route to his half-century score.
In the 16th over of India's chase to 263, Dhawan became the fastest player to 1000 ODI runs against Sri Lanka, surpassing South Africa's Hashim Amla (18 innings). Dhawan reached the feat in his 17th innings against the Lankans. Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was the previous fastest Indian to the feat having amassed the total in 20 innings.
Two overs later, Dhawan completed 6000 ODI runs to become the 10th Indian to the feat, hence joining the likes of Sachin Tendulkar (18,426), Virat Kohli (12,169), Sourav Ganguly (11,363), Rahul Dravid (10,889), MS Dhoni (10,773), Mohammad Azharuddin (9,378), Rohit Sharma (9,205), Yuvraj Singh (8,701), and Virender Sehwag (8,273). Reaching the feat in his 140th ODI innings, Dhawan became the second-fastest Indian to the milestone with Virat Kohli (136 innings) standing atop, and Ganguly (147 innings) standing third.
Dhawan also completed 10000 international runs, becoming the sixth-fastest Indian cricketer to the massive milestone and 13th to the feat.
Earlier in the evening, Sri Lanka fought back to amass 262 for nine after India's spin attack had picked five wickets between themselves.
Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, who featured together in an ODI game for the first time since World Cup 2019, picked two wickets each while Krunal Pandya was the most economical bowler.
