Former India batter and cricket analyst Mohammad Kaif has showered praise on the explosive opening batter Abhishek Sharma after his heroics in the third and final T20I against Afghanistan in Delhi.
Abhishek smacked a 30-ball hundred, the fastest by an Indian batter in T20Is, as he went on to score 108 runs off just 34 balls with nine fours and 11 sixes at a strike rate of 317.65. Speaking on his Instagram handle, Kaif reckoned that a player like Abhishek wouldn’t be found again.
“Abhishek has worked on his game as well. If you remember, he used to go to hit shots from the very first ball in the Asia Cup and got out as well. Now, he is giving himself three to four balls and then going for his shots. This was a commendable knock, and you will not find such a player again. He is a gift that we need to preserve,” Kaif said on his Instagram handle.
“He dominated, hitting sixes down the ground. In this series, he has hit more sixes despite being under pressure. What we can learn from this is that if a batter does not score in a few innings, he does not become a bad batter, because an innings that is the fastest hundred comes after that, so it is important to back players,” he added.
Abhishek was adjudged the ‘Player of the Series’ for his consistent performance throughout the T20I series as he ended as the leading run-scorer with 229 runs at an average of 76.33 with a century and a half-century.
“There was a lot of pressure on Abhishek Sharma. In his last seven innings, there was no fifty, and in India, if you get out in one or two games, there is no guarantee you will get the third game. The competition is such that Vaibhav Suryavanshi is waiting behind. There was a lot of pressure. But the way he made a comeback and counterattacked, it is praiseworthy,” he concluded.
