IPL 2022: Daniel Vettori sees glimpses of Chris Gayle in SRH’s youngster Abhishek Sharma

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) youngster Abhishek Sharma is having a wonderful time with the bat in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022.

The left-handed opening batter has placed himself in the league of big fishes, sitting currently at the sixth spot among the leading run-scorers this season. In eight matches so far, Abhishek has smashed 285 runs at an average of 35.62 and a strike rate of 131.33 with the help of two half-centuries.

One of the major talking points of Abhishek’s super show in the fifteenth season was his recent outing against table-toppers Gujarat Titans (GT). The 21-year-old impressed one-and-all with his scintillating fifty.

During his tremendous 42-ball 65, the biggest eye-catching incident was the way Abhishek played out ace spinner Rashid Khan. The Amritsar-born took Rashid, his former SRH teammate, to the cleaners scoring 34 runs off 15 balls, including three gigantic sixes.

Since most teams and batters play with an approach of going safe against Rashid, considering his incredible ability of taking wickets, Abhishek’s takedown of the Afghanistan star was indeed appreciable.

And former New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori reckoned that Abhishek reminded him of Chris Gayle and Suresh Raina, who had a fairly good record against Rashid in the cash-rich league. The former Black Caps captain felt Abhishek read the length really well, which is often the case when it comes to great players of the game.

“There was a calmness to the way he played. And it felt like he picked up the length. You talk about the great players and their ability to pick up the length, and as soon as Rashid Khan got slightly full, he latched onto it. I think he hit him for three sixes, and they all were just from the case of extending out his front foot and getting to the pitch of the ball. I think Chris Gayle or Suresh Raina have had similar sort of results against him and not many others, and it was through that style of being able to reach the ball,” said Vettori on ESPNcricinfo‘s T20 Time Out.

Vettori observed that Abhishek capitalised on Rashid’s slightly poor deliveries, which other batters failed to do but also paid attention in the rotation of strikes.

“But there’s more to it than just that slight overpitch because he has overpitched to other batsmen, and they haven’t been able to get on to it. I just thought it was how stable he was and the fact that whenever he missed, Abhishek Sharma was there to capitalise on it, and when he got a little bit short, he punched him over cover, but he also never missed an opportunity to take a single,” added Vettori.

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April 29, 2022 at 08:41PM