Shikhar Dhawan Recalls Smuggling Ex-Girlfriend Into Hotel Room Shared With Rohit Sharma

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Shikhar Dhawan, known for his candid nature and vibrant personality, has revealed a fascinating chapter from his early cricketing journey in his autobiography The One: Cricket, My Life and More.

The incident took place during the India A tour to Australia in 2006, where Dhawan's personal life briefly intertwined with his professional duties in an unexpected way.

While recalling how he fell head over heels for a woman during that tour, Dhawan admitted to sneaking her into the hotel room he shared with his teammate Rohit Sharma - something that eventually drew attention from others in the squad, including team officials.

"She was beautiful, and suddenly I was in love again! I thought to myself, 'She is the one for me, and I am going to marry her,'" reads an excerpt from his memoir, as shared by Sportstar. The former cricketer described how the romance blossomed and how he began meeting her regularly after matches. "I started with a half-century in a practice game, and my tour was progressing well. After every game, I would go over to meet up with Ellen (not her real name) and I soon started smuggling her into my hotel room, which I was sharing with Rohit Sharma," Dhawan wrote.

He continued, "Now and then, he would complain in Hindi. 'Will you let me sleep?'"

Dhawan recounted a moment when things became more public during a dinner outing with the girl. "One evening, when I headed for dinner with Ellen, news of her presence spread like wildfire throughout the entire squad. A senior national selector, who was on tour with us, spotted us walking in the lobby with our hands linked."

"It didn't even occur to me that I should let go of her hand, because to me, we were committing no crime. There was a good chance that if I had performed consistently on that Australia tour, I would have made it to the senior Indian side, but my performance kept dipping."

Despite the turbulence of that early chapter, Dhawan went on to enjoy a remarkable career for India. His partnership with Rohit Sharma became iconic in limited-overs cricket, particularly during India's victorious 2013 Champions Trophy campaign.

After being dropped from the Indian setup in late 2022, Dhawan eventually retired from international cricket. Over his career, he represented India in 34 Tests, 167 ODIs, and 68 T20Is, scoring more than 10,000 international runs - including 6,793 runs in ODIs at an impressive average of 44.11, with 17 hundreds and 39 fifties.