When Dhawan Smuggled His GF Into Room Shared with Rohit

Shikhar Dhawan has never been one to hold back — on the field or off it. In a refreshingly honest revelation, the former India opener has opened up about a secret romance from his early cricketing days, involving midnight hotel room visits, a fuming roommate named Rohit Sharma, and a squad-wide gossip storm.

In his newly released autobiography, as quoted by Sportstar, Dhawan opened up about a romantic chapter from the India A tour to Australia in 2006 — a time when he was sharing a hotel room with none other than Rohit Sharma.

“She was very 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,’” Dhawan wrote.

While his form on the field was decent — “I started with a half-century in a practice game, and my tour was progressing well” — things were heating up off the field too. Dhawan recalled how he used to sneak his girlfriend, whom he refers to as Ellen (not her real name), into his hotel room."

“I soon started smuggling her into my hotel room which I was sharing with Rohit Sharma. Now and then, he would complain in Hindi. ‘Will you let me sleep?’”

But word didn’t stay under wraps for long. One evening, as Dhawan walked hand-in-hand with Ellen to dinner, the story exploded within the team.

“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,” he wrote, reflecting on his mindset at the time.

Dhawan admitted that his performance began to dip later in the tour — possibly costing him a place in the senior Indian side.

“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 setback, Dhawan’s storytelling — honest, self-deprecating, and romantic — offers a rare glimpse into the personal life of a cricketer in his formative years.