Former Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar is not too bothered about Abhishek Sharma’s form ahead of the match against the Netherlands. 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 he recently scored 182 runs in five matches against the Kiwis at a strike rate of almost 250.
Sanjay Bangar said on ESPN Cricinfo, “I’m not too concerned about that to be honest, because he’s not played three games in a row. It’s been a stop start tournament obviously, because of him being not available due to stomach upset in the second game. And he did well to come and play in the game at Colbo. So I think he’s that sort of a player who changes the entire dynamic of a team and maybe this is not the first time that this has happened to him in his career and it’s not the last time either.”
“So only a matter of making some mental adjustments as to how he’s thinking about his game. So I’m not too worried and he shouldn’t really doubt his abilities and also the game plan that he possesses. The only thing is that mentally if you tend to rush yourself a little bit and your mind races ahead a little bit as well. So staying in the present and being in control of yourself are the things that Abhishek may think of when he goes in for the game against the Netherlands,” he added.
Meanwhile, the former RCB head coach added he doesn’t want India to alter their batting order and back the same line-up against the Dutch.
He concluded, “I wouldn’t change the batting order just for the sake of giving somebody else an opportunity. If players are settled in their particular roles, and I think things have fallen in place for the Indian team as well. Earlier, we saw that there was always a lot of talk of being very versatile, or that position being the flexibility being the buzz word. But here, I think the selectors have done a good job by zeroing in on like for like replacement, if you want to call it that way. That is the reason why you now suddenly feel that the Indian team batting lineup is a very settled batting lineup, and you don’t want to tinker it at all.”
India will take on the Netherlands at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Wednesday.
