Abhishek has smeared every fifth ball (5.07) over the fence this IPL season. (BCCI)
Abhishek Sharma has faced just 132 balls in eight innings this IPL season. That is just 16 and a half balls every game. It is not a wow stat. Except when you consider that he has smeared every fifth ball (5.07) over the fence, often landing in the stands. It indeed is a wow stat, because it’s six-hitting frequency that betters the best six-hitters in this business.
The most ferocious six-striker of our times, the semi-retired Chris Gayle, smacked one every nine-and-a-half balls he faced in T20s; the Indian maharaja of maximums, Rohit Sharma buried one every 16th ball. Certainly, their careers span almost as long as Abhishek’s age (23). They have traversed the breadth of this world, tamed varied climes and bowlers. Abhishek is in the nascence of his career, yet to feature in one full season of the league, and four short of 100 T20 games.
Gayle has played 10 times more than him; Rohit five-fold. Abhishek might or might not scale such lofty peaks. Before that he would have to maintain this season after season, and prove he is not a one-season wonder.
Yet, he has become an unputdownable watch this season. In the company of Travis Head, who by the way pummels a six every 8.5 balls, he has teed off Sunrisers Hyderabad to supersonic starts. The pair has, in their daring and relish, dusted up memories of another time and format when Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana ripped new-ball bowlers apart to maximise the 15-over field restrictions in the 1996 ODI World Cup. If Head is the equivalent of Sanath Jayasuriya, Abhishek has been something of a Kaluwitharana, accomplice rather than an understudy.
Then it’s not so much about how many Abhishek hits as it is about how he hits them.
Head and Abhishek, in their daring and relish, has dusted up memories of Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana. (BCCI)
He makes it all look like the most natural thing in the world, as though it wouldn’t have occurred to him to play any other way. There are few twiddles and fiddles as he takes strike, always with half a smile, as though he is passing his gentle greetings to the bowler before he subjects them to violence.
There are no awkward shuffles or trigger movements, as is often the case with batsmen bred in Delhi and Punjab. Perhaps when you are as gifted as Abhishek at seeing and hitting a cricket ball, everything else is window dressing. He is still at the crease watching the ball with hawkish eyes and waiting for it to reach him. Only when he has processed the ball and the response — the length, line and the most productive stroke — would he commit. The feet then move nimbly, yet firmly. His movements are definite.
The heart of his batting is his bat-swing — as it was with his mentor Yuvraj Singh and idol Brian Lara. It descends from a height like a crisp, clinical swish of the sword, generating an eye-twitching bat-speed. The two elements breathe timing and power into his shots. Even the follow-through is smooth and simple. He rarely falls over in the shuddering impact of the ball on bat.
Leg-side predilection is evident. As do most six-hitters. As many as 23 of 26 maximums were hits on the leg. Of them, 16 were dispatched between midwicket and long-on. It could misconstrue an impression that he slogs his way to sixes. He does slog, but that’s not his most productive stroke. A lot of them are flick, lofted drives (especially of spinners) and pulls.
The leg-side skew could also be because he often targets spinners rather than seamers for big shots (spinners account for 16 of them). He is a ruthless destroyer of spinners, not sparing even the finest of them, Kuldeep Yadav and Rashid Khan. A six off Rashid stands out — he shimmied down the track and lofted his googly over long-off. Kuldeep was carted for three sixes in an over, twice using his feet to reach the pitch of the ball.
Against seamers, he resorts to the more conventional drives and uses the horizontal bat only when the ball is short.
As his six-scything rages on, whispers of him waltzing into the consciousness of selectors, who would soon pick the squad for the World T20, have gathered girth. Abhishek himself was shocked when the question was put across to him recently. “If start thinking about selection and having a breakthrough IPL season, then my focus might be lost,” he had said. He is not yet ripe to barge into the squad that is well-stocked at the top.
But he certainly is a glint in the corner of the selectors’ eyes, one for the future.
His talents are rare — a new-age left-handed batsman who could belt sixes from the first ball he faces and bat anywhere in the order. There is a less-utilised skill of his too, bowling. He could bowl orthodox left-arm and possess a seamer’s leg-cutter of sorts. But that skill would only be an add-on, when compared to his incredible six-hitting prowess, the most precious currency in T20 cricket.
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