Former Indian batter Rohan Gavaskar has put his weight behind Abhishek Sharma to shine against the Netherlands in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2026. Abhishek bagged a golden duck in the team’s opening match against the USA.

The left-hander then missed the next game against Namibia in Delhi due to stomach infection but he was once again dismissed without troubling the scorers in the last match against arch-rivals Pakistan.

Abhishek is the number one batter in the ICC T20I rankings and had recently scored 182 runs in five matches against New Zealand at a strike rate of almost 250.

Rohan Gavaskar said on Cricbuzz, “I am going with Abhishek Sharma: With him, from the recent past, it’s either feast or famine. It’s either zero or blistering from him.”

The former left-handed batter reckons India can rest Jasprit Bumrah and they can bring back either Arshdeep Singh or Mohammed Siraj against the Dutch.

“India has qualified and this game doesn’t matter with the pre-seeding as they know their Super Eight group. You’ve got bigger and tougher matches coming up. So do you want to rest Jasprit Bumrah now? Because then he’s probably got to play five on the trot if India gets to the final. So if you look from those terms, you bring back either Mohammed Siraj or Arshdeep,” said Gavaskar (via the aforementioned source).

“From a workload management point of view, we’ve seen him (Bumrah) miss games earlier. Over the last few years, workload management has come into play with him. And sometimes, workload management within a tournament is important.”

India will take on the Netherlands at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Wednesday.