Ahmedabad: India have twice delivered statement performances with the bat without a run from Abhishek Sharma. With Ishan Kishan on song, imagine the extent of double trouble for bowlers if both get going.
There is a learning though in the Sanju Samson batting timeline, how form can be fickle in T20 cricket. Samson was at the top of his powers as an opener. By the time he returned to take his place back at the top, after transitioning in the middle order, teams had identified cracks in his game. There are areas Abhishek too may want to tighten, after four zeroes against his name in the last seven innings.
The left-hander would welcome an outing against a relatively weak Netherlands attack on Wednesday. Even in the fast-paced world of T20 cricket, even in Abhishek’s uber-aggressive universe, time spent in the middle could do him good before bigger battles come, especially with a rampaging Kishan for company to address the scoring rate.
In a batting net, almost as long as a T20 innings in Ahmedabad on match eve, Abhishek was watchful while facing Arshdeep Singh’s tight lines outside the off-stump. Every time he faced spinners, whether it was Varun Chakravarthy or the net bowlers, he went into overdrive.
With Abhishek’s unadulterated approach and the telling success he has had, what he needs is to second guess what bowlers are trying to do. The bowlers know he likes to step out. They know he likes to give himself room. Does he have more tricks up his sleeve?
The New Zealand series was a mixed bag. Every time he clicked, Abhishek did a demolition job. In between those whirlwind innings, the more effective of the Kiwis pacers did halt his run by bowling wider lines outside off. The stomach bug that kept him out of the Namibia game though didn’t help.
Abhishek fell against USA to a similar dismissal trying to clear deep cover. Whether the pattern of dismissals left Abhishek with the slightest of indecision against Pakistan and led him to holing out to mid-on against Salman Agha’s spin, is difficult to say. But when to attack, whom and whether to do that, are decisions the 25-year-old may be chewing over as he looks for his first runs in the World Cup.
“We plan, yes,” Sitanshu Kotak, Indian batting coach, said. “But he wasn’t well, so he didn’t play (against Namibia). In the last game, he got out in the first over. So, one thing we definitely do, we unnecessarily don’t over-analyse because sometimes you start making a lot more assumptions than the opposition. He is someone who has got his plan sorted and he follows the way he wants to. Obviously, we discuss the opposition, their bowling, their bowling strength, whatever they’ve been doing in their last few games.”
Kotak was quick to add that whether batters batted to match situations or not was a better yardstick to judge them than sweat over early dismissals in high-risk, high-reward exchanges. “I think playing aggressive cricket is important, but not because of a player’s couple of failures will (we) change. It’s more what the team needs at that time, in those conditions. What Surya did against USA was playing the situation,” Kotak added.
At the start of the innings when Abhishek walks in, the brief is usually see-ball, hit-ball. That’s anyway what the southpaw, further liberated by batting with Travis Head in the IPL, prefers to do. When he gets it right, and India would hope it’s not long before he does some tactical fine-tuning, the Yuvraj Singh disciple would have swept the crowd off their feet.
