Mumbai: Abhishek Sharma will be playing his first ICC World Cup semi-final on Thursday. Jos Buttler will walk out as a seven-time T20 World Cup veteran. Both batters usually deal in the same currency — fours and sixes — but they are enduring nervy times at the moment.
How liberating it must feel to have the licence to thrill, Buttler might think of his younger self watching Abhishek. Surely, it must help more to have been there and done that, Abhishek may be thinking.
These are stray thoughts that run through your mind when runs are not coming. One half of the opening duo of the two semi-finalists is searching for ways to iron out creases from their game.
Abhishek has managed only 80 runs in 6 innings with 55 of them coming in one match against Zimbabwe. But as his scratchy stay at the crease in the previous match against West Indies showed, the left-hander is nowhere near where he wants to be.
Buttler has been doing worse. His 7 innings have lasted only 58 balls and produced 62 runs in all. He may have seen several blips in form over a career spanning 154 T20Is, but at 35, it might be getting harder to continue believing that runs are just around the corner.
The silver lining is that it does not take much for a swing in fortune in T20 cricket.
“Form sometimes is just an innings away,” said Sunil Gavaskar in a media interaction ahead of the DP World Celebrity Golf Event to create awareness on the Champs Foundation. “We have seen it with two players in the last month and a half, Suryakumar Yadav and Sanju Samson. In the New Zealand bilateral series, there were concerns around Suryakumar Yadav’s form. Surya kept on saying, he is not out of form but out of runs. Then, he started getting runs. Similarly with Sanju. Hopefully for India, Abhishek will be able to be back at his blistering best in the coming matches.”
Gavaskar has kept abreast with the younger format as a commentary regular. His advice to Abhishek is not to be obsessed with being in overdrive mode.
“Don’t always look to bat in the fourth gear. Maybe up the gears as you settle in,” he said. “Yes, you certainly want to take advantage of the Powerplay. Play to your strengths, but you can do it even batting in the third gear, as Sanju showed by getting 97 of 50 deliveries. Anyone doing that would have ensured his team gets double the runs. 190-200 in the semis and you are possibly looking at a winning score.”
Abhishek’s five previous dismissals have either come against spin or from failing to read slower balls bowled by pacers.
“In this format, spinners can give you a feel that you have to go for maximums. You can mistime and get out. In any case in this format, off-pace deliveries are difficult. Batters like the pace on the ball, to get under the ball and use the pace. With spinners, you have to power the ball and sometimes the bat speed is too much, leading to caught dismissals,” said Gavaskar.
England are expected to use off-spinner Will Jacks prominently against Abhishek. But that won’t be as easy now with Samson’s presence, the back-in-form right-hander.
“Maybe the right-handers have to do more of the batting against Jacks because he is on a roll with the ball,” said the batting legend.
This tactical cat and mouse between the two sides could prove to be a key factor in the contest. As with Buttler, England continue to believe.
“Jos obviously would want some more runs, but I would certainly like him in my team rather than coming up against him on Thursday,” Sam Curran told reporters on Tuesday. “He’s a quality player. He has done well on this ground many many times. Hopefully, Thursday night is his night. We are not worried about him at all.”
