Kamal Ghorui
Mumbai: Showering praise on India’s young T20 batting sensation Abhishek Sharma, former India head coach Ravi Shastri has made it clear how much India will bank on the attacking left-hander in the T20 World Cup next month by saying, “If he takes off, India take off.” Abhishek smashed 84 off just 35 balls, in a match-winning innings which was studded with eight sixes, to set up India’s 48-run win over New Zealand in the first T20I at Nagpur on Wednesday night.
Asked about which player he thought would dominate the 2026 T20 World Cup tournament, which is set to begin from February 7, Shastri replied at a promotional event of the International Cricket Council here on Thursday, “Abhishek, without a shadow of a doubt. (He’s) the No. 1 T20 batsman in the world and in a rich vein of form. He took the game away from New Zealand last evening. You’ve got to watch out for him because his confidence level is high. He’ll be backed by the home crowd. And if he takes off, it means India take off.” Meanwhile, sitting alongside Shastri, former England batting great Kevin Pietersen said that he felt that Abhishek and South Africa’s batting prodigy Dewald Brevis will be the players who will make the maximum impact in the upcoming T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. Asked about which player he thought would dominate the tournament, Pietersen spelled out Brevis’s name, while going gaga over the 22-year-old’s game in the SA20, during which the ex-England captain was doing commentary duties. “Brevis again played another incredible innings last night. A couple of days ago, I was calling the game in Johannesburg where his team, the Pretoria Capitals, led by (Sourav) Ganguly, was struggling. They were seven for five (in the fifth over) and Brevis went (in) and batted for 15 overs and they got to a winning total of 140 or 150 (143/6). (Now) that’s something Brevis has always come under criticism for, that he’s just a one-trick pony. He stands there and he just tries to hit six after six after six. I said in the commentary that could be the making of Brevis, so from that point of view, he’s in that. Just because I’m seeing him a lot at the moment,” Pietersen said. Showering similar praise on Abhishek, who smashed 84 off just 35 balls to set up India’s 48-run win over New Zealand in the opening T20I at Nagpur on Wednesday night, ‘KP’ remarked, “That kid is a proper star.” “Abhishek Sharma. I mean, my goodness. I remember when Abhishek got that 150 (135 off 54 balls; seven fours, 13 sixes) against England, remember at the Wankhede Stadium last year? We were watching this and (when) he came over and we interviewed him after the game. I just put my hand on his shoulder and I said, ‘Young man, that is the best T20 innings I’ve ever seen in international cricket.’ That kid is a proper star,” ‘KP’ gushed. Asked if he saw Abhishek’s latest special, Pietersen nodded an affirmative. “I saw, I saw. When you know he’s batting, you turn the TV on!” ‘You’ve to take criticism in your stride’ Meanwhile, quizzed on how he reacted to criticism during his tenure as Team India coach — he was in the hot seat from 2014-16, and then from 2016-21 — Shastri said that he “just took it in his stride.” “I prefer criticism that is constructive, and when I became a broadcaster, I said I’ve divorced the dressing room and I will speak on what I see. It doesn’t matter if you were my colleague or you were my friend when I was playing the game. But that’s something you expect. In my tenure, there were good moments and there were rough moments. You just have to take it in your stride because you know there is another game coming up.” “One day you are in a pole position. The next day you are in a troll position. That can happen. But in a week, you can see all three. You can be in pole, troll, again pole,” he added.
