On eve of their T20 World Cup match against the Netherlands, India’s net session on Tuesday was all about spin, with Abhishek Sharma’s thunderous hits taking center stage.
Abhishek batted on the main plaza of the expansive Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad for over an hour without scoring a run in the tournament.
Abhishek, who prefers to play in front of the wicket on either side, stuck to his strengths and targeted the deep cover area and cow corner against Varun Chakaravarthy and a net bowler’s off-spin. The southpaw used the pull and the pick-up shot behind the wicket when the pacers were in action. It was showering sixes on all three of them.
Abhishek came back to bat alongside captain Suryakumar Yadav just when everyone thought he was finished. Abhishek was fast to send anything full in the direction of his chosen extra cover area when Kuldeep Yadav came to roll his arm over.
Tilak Varma and Rinku Singh, for example, spent more time against the slower bowlers in adjacent nets. Only half of the squad—Abhishek, Chakaravarthy, Suryakumar, Tilak, Kuldeep, Washington Sundar, and Arshdeep Singh—were on the ground.
Rinku, like Gerhard Erasmus in the match against Namibia, returned to bowl some off-spin with a round arm movement after a long session with the bat. Last week in Delhi, the Namibian captain had caused problems for the Indian batters with his unusual action and delivery from well behind the stumps.
The Indian batters’ performance against players like Usman Tariq and Saim Ayub was subpar, even in the Pakistan match. Despite a difficult pitch in Colombo, Ishan Kishan’s heroics cost Pakistan the match.
