Behind Shikhar Dhawan'swinsome smile and confident strokeplay lies the pain of past failure.

The failure to balance style and substance. The failure to catch the bus on time. The failure to live up to expectations, which at one point nearly consumed him and his career. Yet, unlike some other flamboyant, new-age batsmen from his own state of Delhi, he never seems to bat in anger. At the crease, he is like the errant, overjoyed kid who never expected his broken toy to be replaced. Now, he just won't let go. Those who have watched him on the domestic circuit for years are wondering if Dhawan has finally figured out how precious time and talent can be. It took a while coming. Delhi may have contributed the colossus calledVirender Sehwag and the pure efficiency of Gautam Gambhir but the state team was always full of domestic heavyweights who never quite made the jump. Since 2004, when he made his first-class debut, till the time of his debut Test century against Australia in March, Dhawan was part of that unheralded second rung, always respected but never idolized. Yet, something about his strokeplay was different. He liked to believe he was marked for bigger things. It's just that Dhawan didn't know yet the sacrifices one must make along the way. Back in 2004, he scored three centuries in the under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh and then watched Suresh Raina, RP Singh, Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik become household names. He kept batting at No. 3 for Delhi though he loved to open, kept advertising his love for the good life and generally came across as a closet style icon who couldn't be bothered to raise his game the few required notches. "With so many cricketers around, I think we always tend to put doubts in the minds of ambitious newcomers," says Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya. "Some players figure out fast how much they are capable of. Some keep waiting for the big break. Shikhar is an instinctive player. Right now he is batting with so much confidence there is no room in his mind for failure. That's how he is handling the pressure." Like Sehwag, who has always guided him, Dhawan's strokeplay didn't sit too well with measured analysis. If the runs came, all was well and good. If they didn't, he would forget about it and put his mind to other things. Then sometimes between December 2010 when his soft dismissal led to a Delhi defeat against Railways and a sort of guilt-trip - to an unspectacular tour (he scored 51, 3, 4 and 11) of the West Indies in June 2011 something changed from within. "Any other person would have thought he was not cut out for the big league after such a poor tour," says Madan Sharma, one of his early coaches. "But Shikhar came back hungrier, convinced that he knew what he had to do next. That was the turning point. He kept telling everybody he wanted to play longer for India. He realized the IPL was a platform but the real clincher would be tall scores in domestic cricket. "He started coming to nets on time, fussed over his batting, starting asking questions he had never done before. He would ask about wrist positions and front-foot play. He decided to work on his pet shots, like the cut and drive. And he was very smart. With the advice he got, he knew what to reject and what to incorporate. He consciously cut out the tendency to waft at deliveries when set. At 27, these are his best years as a batsman and he knows he must make them count."

He averaged a shade above 55 this domestic season, walked into the Indian team, and has been talking in hundreds since. Of course, luck has played a part. His 363 runs at 90.75 in theChampions Trophy, for example, wouldn't have been possible without a few dropped catches. But as Dahiya says, "Only those desperate to do well find luck come their way. Unlike before, Shikhar now knows scoring tall scores can be fun. The change is not so much technical as mental. " The real test for Dhawan comes now. Can he sustain the hunger while continuing to work on the chinks, like the pull or the on-side play? Can he bring his A-game to the crease day in and day out, especially if the team starts relying heavily on him?