Fearlessness. It’s a great trait to espouse, but not always the easiest to embrace. When fearlessness translates to breathtaking outcomes, it is hailed as a virtue, a masterstroke. When it results in one’s downfall, especially early in the innings, the same ‘virtue’ can become a millstone.
It takes conviction, therefore, to continue to place faith in that quality even in the face of odd failure. Easier said than done, of course. Unless one is Abhishek Sharma.
It’s a little shy of 19 months since India were crowned T20 World Cup winners for a second time, in Bridgetown. Abhishek wasn’t in the squad; he had made his way into the larger scheme of things after a breakout season with Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024. But with even the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill struggling to get a look-in once India decided to push Virat Kohli up the order to partner Rohit Sharma against the new ball, Abhishek knew he had to bide his time.
Fortunately for him, that biding wasn’t a long process. Within a week of the World Cup triumph, India travelled to Zimbabwe for a five-match T20I series, under first-time skipper Gill. Abhishek’s international debut was inauspicious as he courted a four-ball duck after opening the batting alongside his captain and his dear friend. Retribution was immediate; Zimbabwe were punished for their impunity in the very next game when the left-hander clattered to his maiden century off just 46 deliveries. His second fifty came off an incredible 13 balls, with three fours and five towering sixes. This fella, he was quite something.
There have been numerous false dawns in Indian cricket, but Abhishek most certainly isn’t one of them. In no time, he made himself indispensable, with his intrepid ball-bashing that wasn’t built on a wing and a prayer. With Rohit and Kohli retiring in the immediacy of the seven-run heist against South Africa at Kensington Oval, there were two opening slots up for grabs, and Abhishek’s century in his second T20I had given him a headstart. How spectacularly he has built on that.
Within a year of his debut, Abhishek surged to the top of the ICC T20I rankings for batters, displacing his opening partner at SRH, Australian Travis Head. They say that it is easier — not easy, just easier —to get to the top than to stay there. Abhishek has made the not-so-easy appear terribly straightforward, and is now indisputably the most feared opener in the world. And he is only 25.
Putting on a show
Let’s return to fearlessness, just for a brief while. After kicking off the five-match series against New Zealand with a scorching 35-ball 84 in Nagpur on Wednesday, Abhishek was dismissed first ball in the next outing. The bigger-sized arena at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur consumed him, as much as anything else. The first ball he received, from Jacob Duffy, was well within his hitting arc, a shot he has mastered through hours of toil in the anonymity of practice sessions. Full and on his pads, it begged to be deposited over the fence. Abhishek obliged with his trademark aerial flick with a flourish, and even though he timed it well enough, it didn’t have the legs to clear Devon Conway on the square boundary on the leg-side. Conway had put down a similar offering from Sanju Samson at the same position off the first ball of the contest, but Abhishek wasn’t as lucky, trudging off disconsolate after making no contribution to what in theory was a stiff run-chase of 209.
You’d think a first-ball dismissal would force most batters to at least be desperate to get off the mark with a cheap single in the next outing. But Abhishek has shown in the last year and a half, if not more, that he is nothing like ‘most batters’. And therefore on Sunday, in Guwahati where India were confronted with a modest target of 154 to clinch the series at the first time of asking, he charged down the track to his first ball, also from Duffy, and drop-kicked it over long-on for the most outrageous of sixes. In the previous over, Ishan Kishan, the pint-sized dynamite, had elicited an admiring, defeated smile from Matt Henry after dismissing him for a six, just two deliveries after Samson had been bowled first ball. Duffy wasn’t in a similarly obliging mood, though after the match which ended with an Indian win with 60 deliveries to spare, he almost snatched Abhishek’s bat to check for ‘springs’ or some such illegal aid that helped propel the ball to long distances.
Twice in three matches now, New Zealand have felt the full fury of Abhishek’s scything willow. Batting first in Nagpur allowed him to blast 84; a modest target in Guwahati meant the large gathering had to be satisfied with an unbeaten 68, which came off a measly 20 deliveries, with not a single dot ball in the equation. Despite the first-ball blob in Raipur, Abhishek now has 152 runs for the series at an average of 76; he has smashed 12 fours and 13 sixes, largely responsible for a staggering strike-rate of 271.43. And he has done so with supreme nonchalance, hardly seeming to hit a ball in anger even though it has sailed miles up in the air and multiple rows back in the stands.
Before the bat-grab, Duffy had been treated to the most extraordinary shot perhaps inflicted on him. Abhishek’s penchant for giving himself room to go over the off-side is well known, and he possibly gave his hand away by leaving his crease just a little too soon as the tall Kiwi began to load. Duffy bowled a full ball well outside leg-stump, taking pace off it and therefore not only cramping Abhishek for room but also asking him to make his own pace. A majority of the batters would have patted the ball back, the slightly more inventive ones tucked it around the corner for a single. But as we have come to realise, Abhishek operates on his own terms. He still managed to make enough room to free his arms and drive the ball, silkenly, over cover for the most mellifluous of fours. Duffy’s jaw hit the ground. He had bowled the perfectly acceptable ball, done everything he could to make scoring difficult, and Abhishek had effortlessly one-upped him. Just doff your hat and retreat to the top of the mark, Jacob, Duffy told himself, and enjoy the entertainment, even if it is at my expense.
India have been spoiled rotten by Abhishek’s pyrotechnics. Only twice in his last 26 T20I innings has Abhishek failed to touch double-digits, and his slowest innings when he has crossed 10 is 19 off 14 against Australia in Canberra in October, when he scored at 135.71. His slowest, we repeat. In these 26 digs, he has slammed eight half-centuries and a remarkable 135, off 54 deliveries, against England last February. He boasts a strike-rate of 200 or more seven times, peaking at 340 on Sunday. There have been 102 fours and 76 sixes in that period, including a staggering 13 of the latter in that Wankhede decimation of England alone. Players go through an entire T20 international career without hitting 76 sixes; this guy averages nearly three an innings in the last 14-and-a-half months, against South Africa, England, the UAE, Pakistan, Oman, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand, in South Africa, India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Australia. What are you made of, Abhishek Sharma?
The soft-spoken young man who has been mentored by Yuvraj Singh, himself a no mean six-hitter, has been consistent to a fault in T20Is despite his propensity to go after the bowling from the off. In 35 innings, he has beautifully married a high average of 38.39 with a bruising strike-rate of 195.22; eight half-centuries have been complemented by two centuries, 119 fours buttressed by 86 sixes. All of these combine to present the picture of an unabashed destroyer of bowling attacks, but they don’t even start to do justice to his impact and the electricity that is as much a part of his kitbag as his punishing willow.
Like mentor, like mentee
Yuvraj has been a wonderful ally for several of India’s young batters across generations. In his playing days, he took Kohli and Rohit under his wings. He helped the latter emerge unscathed from a trying phase in the immediacy of Rohit being overlooked for the 50-over home World Cup in 2011. Post retirement, he has spent a lot of time sharing his knowledge and wisdom with young charges in his home state of Punjab. Notable stars to have emerged from the Yuvraj stable, so to say, are Gill, Abhishek and Prabhsimran Singh. Gill has gone on to become the Test and One-Day International captain while Abhishek is making his mentor proud with his sustained exploits in the T20 ecosystem.
Abhishek became India’s second-fastest T20I half-centurion in Guwahati, easing to that milestone off just 14 deliveries. It’s fitting that the man he idolises and to whom he owes a lot sits atop that pile; Yuvraj’s 50 off 12 deliveries against England in Durban in the T20 World Cup in 2007, during which he smashed six sixes in a Stuart Broad over, remains the quickest half-ton by an Indian. Abhishek might get there one day and if and when he does so, no one will be more delighted than Yuvraj. After all, what will give a master greater satisfaction than being bested by his pupil?
Abhishek doesn’t play for records, milestones or numbers. That’s not even on his radar because otherwise, how will he be able to consistently take on and dismantle quality bowling attacks? He is secure in his mind, clear in his head about what he wants to do and how he wants to go about doing it, and he is fortunate to have the unquestioned backing of the leadership group of Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam Gambhir. Within the Indian group, he is rapidly on his way to becoming the 20-over batting equivalent of Jasprit Bumrah. How about that?
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