Abhishek Sharma needs to bowl more for India.
Despite having an obsession with multi-skilled players, India haven’t used some of the decent batting all-rounders enough with the ball in the last couple of years. Among them is Abhishek Sharma.
He’s always been a decent bowling prospect and did reasonably well at the domestic level. Still, India haven’t used him wisely or given him enough overs.
Abhishek Sharma flexes his bowling credentials
Abhishek Sharma took three wickets in 2.5 overs in the second T20I against Zimbabwe. While he got wickets of lower-order batters, Abhishek still showed decent defensive bowling skills in Harare.
Take Brad Evans’ dismissal, for instance. He was looking dangerous, having already hit two maximums, including one against Abhishek himself.
However, then the Indian all-rounder showed his skills. Evans tried to play the field by moving across and hitting behind the square, but Abhishek followed him immediately.
He fired one on his leg stump, away from the batter’s arc, and he missed it altogether. The ball went to crash the stumps in a flash, as Evans’ innings ended before it could become dangerous.
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Later, Abhishek again bowled a yorker length to control Newman Nyamhuri’s downswing and not allow him to get under the ball. That’s precisely what happened, as Newman missed it completely and lost his stumps.
A flighted delivery earned him his third wicket. Rather than darting a fuller length, as he did for the previous two dismissals, Abhishek deliberately bowled a loopy trajectory, and Richard Ngarava could only hole it out to long on.
Eventually, Abhishek Sharma ended with the most wickets in the game and wrapped things up. In the process, he casually reminded team management why he needs to be used more with the ball.
Abhishek’s improper usage
Playing for India, Abhishek Sharma has bowled in only 36.36% of T20I innings with the ball. Even when he has been used, the southpaw has delivered only 9.10 balls per innings. That’s not even two overs.
Out of 20 innings he bowled in, Abhishek has never finished his quota of four overs. 6 times he’s been used against Zimbabwe, and once each against Oman and the Netherlands. Clearly, he hasn’t been trusted enough with the ball.
One reason has been India’s problem of plenty. Playing an all-rounder-heavy XI already gives them enough bowling options, and they have shown more liking towards pace bowlers.
For example, Shivam Dube has bowled extended spells and has been used as a fifth bowler in the ongoing Zimbabwe series. The same goes for Nitish Kumar Reddy, and now Suryansh Shedge is being deployed slowly in the absence of Hardik Pandya.
Abhishek Sharma hasn't been used enough with the ball
Amid all this, Abhishek and several other decent part-timers, such as Tilak Varma, haven’t got the opportunity to hone their skills. Abhishek, in particular, could have progressed a lot more with work on his bowling.
Instead, India have used him just as a filler so far. His bowling had enough potential, as his domestic numbers suggest.
In all T20s, Abhishek Sharma has 58 wickets at an average of 27.25 and an economy rate of 7.63 in 99 innings. Similarly, he has 41 wickets at 37.68 runs apiece in List A cricket.
So, there’s enough value that Gautam Gambhir and his staff haven’t looked closely into. As a result, Abhishek still finds himself as just a part-timer.
How Abhishek’s bowling could be crucial to India’s balance
The UK tour was a reminder that specialists are still required in white-ball cricket, even if all-rounders provide the balance. The non-specialists in any department can’t win games against big teams, especially away from home.
No wonder India, under VVS Laxman, have opted for four specialist bowlers, including three pacers, against Zimbabwe. They want to focus more on using main players in Hardik’s absence now.
That is the right thing to do as well. But in such a scenario, India will definitely need more part-timers to chip in with useful overs at times.
That’s where Abhishek Sharma could be mighty handy with the ball. He has impressive defensive skills against RHBs, with decent control over his lengths and bowls accurate lines.
Abhishek Sharma has done well against both RHBs and LHBs
Additionally, he has a backspinner that straightens away from LHBs due to the wrists snapping backwards. If he works more on this delivery and starts putting more revs, Abhishek will become a more than handy spinner.
But India need to work on his bowling skills by giving him more overs, as they do with Shivam Dube. At a time when the focus should be on specialists in both departments, players like Abhishek can provide some bowling options to balance the XI.
Outside the home conditions, he will likely fetch more success due to the surfaces not being out-and-out flat, and the boundaries slightly longer. In Australia, there might be enough value in his bowling due to big square boundaries.
The spell against Zimbabwe was an illustration that Abhishek Sharma is more than an explosive batter in T20s. If India want to play specialists rather than being defensive in white-ball cricket, they need to employ Abhishek’s bowling more from here on.
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