Former India captain and coach Anil Kumble has compared Abhishek Sharma to Virender Sehwag but has cautioned that the flamboyant Sunrisers Hyderabad opener needs to strike the right balance between aggression and longevity at the crease.
The 25-year-old Abhishek has been one of the most explosive batters at the top of the order.
However, his inability to convert brisk starts into substantial scores more often than not has come to the fore.
“I would relate him to someone like Virender Sehwag, because he would look to smash every ball. When he moved from Test cricket to one-day cricket and then to T20 cricket, he realised that he had to pace his innings slightly differently.
“But Sehwag would still go at a 140-150 strike-rate. So, that’s something Abhishek Sharma needs to start thinking about, saying, ‘I’ve been scoring at 200 strike-rate, expectations are on me, should I now go at a strike rate of 300?’ No, you just have to be normal. You have to play a number of balls,” Kumble said on JioHotstar.
“If Abhishek bats 20 balls in an innings, we know he will be close to that 50 mark. We saw that with Sanju Samson, not getting out in the 40s or 50s, but making it count by going deeper, getting to that 85- 90 mark.
“That’s what you need in the T20 format. Maybe that’s the kind of maturity you will see in Abhishek this season, which SRH will be hoping for,” he added.
‘Respect for bowlers’
Former South Africa skipper AB de Villiers also stressed the need for greater consistency from the left-hander, who now has to also deal with the burden of expectations.
“He’s 25, not 20 anymore. So, this is definitely the phase where he has to start taking more responsibility. There will be media pressure and people asking him to become more consistent.
“We know he was a little inconsistent during the T20 World Cup, which was disappointing. He had a good finish in the final, but otherwise, it was a quiet tournament for him. He was erratic at times. He had an unbelievable IPL 2025, scoring close to a 200 strike-rate and averaging in the 30s, which is good for an opening batter scoring over 400 runs in the tournament, but it could have been better.
“Once again, that word consistency comes to mind. It’s a personal challenge he will have to overcome mentally.”
“Being the No. 1 international T20I batter in the world comes with expectation, and that is the most dangerous word in cricket, when you feel like the whole world is closing in on you, and it’s up to him to fight those mental battles throughout this coming season.”
De Villiers said Abhishek has to learn to respect a bowler’s skill and that will be help him tighten his game plan.
“The answer to his success, and to the longevity of his career and consistency, lies in him understanding and respecting different match-ups. A bowler comes on, suppose it’s Bumrah, and the game is on the line. How do you handle that? Do you attack him, or do you respect it and get to the other end? That is where you have to be true to yourself as a batter.
“You have to feel, ‘There’s a threat here, I’m not comfortable, I’m not going to give it away. I’ll give it a couple of minutes and see if something else comes up.’ I think that is the only missing link in his game still.
“It’s about understanding that sometimes a bowler is going to get it right to you. That’s where he needs to be clever and really believe in his game plan. He will have a blueprint that’s worked for him over the years, and he just has to fine-tune that, believe in it more than ever, and stick to it,” De Villiers said.