'Not 20 anymore': Abhishek Sharma told to take more responsibility in IPL
Former India captain and coach Anil Kumble has said Abhishek Sharma needs to find a balance between attacking play and spending more time at the crease, drawing a comparison with Virender Sehwag ahead of the IPL season starting March 28. The 25-year-old Abhishek has built a reputation for fast starts at the top of the order with his high-risk approach. However, his starts have not always turned into big scores.
"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," the former India coach said. "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 JioStar, as cited by news agency PTI.
Kumble pointed out that Abhishek has the ability to score quickly but needs to stay longer at the crease to make a bigger impact. "If Abhishek Sharma 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. Abhishek, who had a quiet T20 World Cup campaign, will next play for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the upcoming IPL.