Shikhar Dhawan denies India are over-reliant on top order

India's last one-day international outing was a disappointing affair – they were beaten 2-3 at home by Australia, despite leading 2-0 – with their batting seemingly off the boil.

Over the years, Dhawan, along with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, have formed one of the most outstanding top orders in ODI cricket. Against Australia, they were again among the top run-scorers for their team, but only Kohli really sparkled with 310 from five matches at 62.00. Rohit and Dhawan averaged a more modest 40.40 and 35.40 respectively.

With the top order failing to do a bulk of the scoring, the onus was on the middle order, which struggled to deliver. This gave rise to concerns whether India were over-dependent on the top order, but Dhawan said the team was full of talented batsmen lower down as well.

"Not just the three of us, the other boys have chipped in as well," Dhawan told Cricbuzz. "We have Kedar (Jadhav), Mahi bhai(MS Dhoni), Hardik (Pandya) has been amazing and KL Rahul is there as well. Vijay Shankar has come in, he's a talented boy. So we have a great squad."

Despite that unexpected loss though, India – No.2 on the MRF Tyres ICC Men's ODI Team Rankings – go into the World Cup as one of the top contenders, along with England. With the expectations high, there will also be a lot of pressure on the team, but Dhawan said they had it under control.

"We have been doing it for five years now, so nothing's going to change," he said. "We're just going to go and play. We've scored so many centuries. Broken so many records. We know how to do it. We know how to do it, we are not going to overthink it. It's alright if it is the World Cup."

India begin their World Cup campaign against South Africa on 5 June in Southampton.