It took four back-to-back failures for Abhishek Sharma to learn that, like in life, so in cricket, sometimes one needs to take a few steps back to go forward in the best way possible.
Denouncing his ultra-aggressive style of going on a boundary hunt from ball one, Abhishek displayed much better temperament — a quality that Team India’s batting coach Sitanshu Kotak said had no place in the shortest format — and earned a much-needed and well-deserved fifty, in the Super Eight match against Zimbabwe here on Thursday.
The best part of Abhishek’s innings was that even after the restraint he showed, he still managed to score at a strike rate of 183.33.
His 55 off 30 balls came after scores of 0, 0, 0 and 15. Was he flawless in his game
on Thursday? No. Did he bat well? Yes.
He did swing and miss a few times and some of his underedges missed the stumps narrowly. But those are ignorable aspects in a T20 slugfest.
A much more refreshing sight was him rediscovering his clean timing in some of his big hits. Like when he launched Brad Evans over the cow corner for a six.
With Sanju Samson taking the strike first up and facing all six balls of the first over, Abhishek got some invaluable time to spend at the wicket. Watching from the other
end, it must have helped him get a feel of the true nature of the MA Chidambaram Stadium pitch.
When he faced his first ball in the second over of the innings, he didn’t go for a slog swing. Instead, he was happy to push it to deep cover, take a single and go off strike. Just like Sunil Gavaskar advised him to do a few days back, to snap his lean patch.
Abhishek, however, claimed his restraint was not planned. “It wasn’t intentional. I just wanted to spend some time on the pitch.”
Abhishek was picking the length well, though Zimbabwe were also helping him by bowling the wrong line mostly. Even when the spinners came on, after the Powerplay, Abhishek didn’t pounce on them like a man possessed. He played the ball on its merit.
But even while adopting a somewhat new approach, he didn’t miss out on the opportunities to hit the big ones. Result? Four boundaries and four sixes.
Abhishek perished at long-on when he failed to pick a slower off-cutter from Tinotenda Maposa, in the 13th over of the innings. But by then, he had successfully reset his system. Aggression tempered with a bit of caution.
Is this the beginning of Abhishek Sharma 2.0? Let’s find out on Sunday.