Indian opener Abhishek Sharma said he simply backs his shots as he does not possess a wide range of strokes in his arsenal. The left-hander brought up
his half-century off just 22 balls, finishing with a strike rate of 240 after smashing eight sixes in a whirlwind knock during the first T20I against New Zealand, which helped the Men in Blue secure a 48-run victory.
Abhishek struck four sixes before registering his first boundary after the powerplay. Since the openers get little time to assess conditions before attacking, the youngster conceded that doing his homework before a match helps him get into the right mindset from the outset.
"If you watch videos [of bowlers] or if you watch your batting videos as well, you get an idea that where the bowler is planning to bowl to you or maybe where I'm going to play my shots. But it's always about me backing my shots because I don't have a lot of shots. It's just a few shots. I'm going to practice a lot and just execute it,” said Abhishek in the presentation.
Though Abhishek struck some towering sixes, he insisted that his game is not solely about power-hitting. Among Full Member teams, he has been the most prolific six-hitter in T20Is since the 2024 T20 World Cup, having smashed 81 sixes in 33 innings. The next best on the list is Pakistan’s Sahibzada Farhan, who has hit 47 sixes in 32 games.
"If you see, I would never do range-hitting because I'm not that strong kind of guy. I feel I'm more of a timing batter. So, for me, I have to just watch the ball and get used to the conditions because we are playing all over India right now and so I have to adapt to the conditions very quickly. And for that, I plan a day before or probably whenever I get a net session. So, that's always in my mind because these kinds of bowlers are going to bowl here and they got some plans, so I have to back it (my game) as well,” said Abhishek.
Of the 35 balls he faced, 28 resulted in runs, with 13 going for boundaries. Even after the powerplay had concluded, Abhishek continued to find the fence, striking three consecutive fours in the seventh over and later smashing back-to-back sixes off Ish Sodhi in the 12th.
"I don't feel it's a high-risk [game]. For me, I wouldn't say it's my comfort zone, but it's like I always want the team to be first because they want to use the first six overs and that's what I've been practising before the nets as well. And that was always in my mind, because all the main bowlers from all the teams, they bowl first, second, three overs probably [early on]. And if I can score [off them] in the first three or four overs, then we have always got the upper hand,” said Abhishek.
"One thing I've figured out is that if you want to hit all the balls or probably if you want to play at the strike rate of 200 or something then you have to carry that intent and you have to practice a lot for that. Because all these teams always have a plan for me because so far I think it's just not the fielding [placements], it's all about the pitching and the bowling as well. So it's about the preparation I'm doing before the games because I've got two-three days or maybe a week before this. So I knew that I'm going to get challenged by these bowlers, but obviously I'm going to back my instinct and I've been practising a lot about that,” he added.
