‘I worry for those worried about him’: Suryakumar backs Abhishek amid duck streak

Ahmedabad: From being the darling of a cricket-mad country over the last 20 months, thanks to his electrifying batting, to becoming the most scrutinised man for his three successive ducks, life has literally turned upside down for young Indian opener Abhishek Sharma this T20 World Cup.

Irrespective of who comes for the pre or post-match media activity, a question on the southpaw’s unforgettable run is a must. So it wasn’t surprising skipper Suryakumar Yadav was asked about the 25-year-old on the eve of their opening Super Eight game versus South Africa. 

Suryakumar, who went through a really long lean run before finding form in the nick of time in the preceding five-match T20I series against New Zealand, flat-batted the expected query on Abhishek, backing the opener to come good in the upcoming matches.

“About Abhishek's form, I worry for the people who are worried about Abhishek's form,” a smiling  Suryakumar said. “I worry about them. I think about those teams who are going to play against him; that he has not yet scored a run. When he scores a run, you have seen what happens. It (poor run of scores) happens, it's a team sport. If it (returning to form) happens, then it's fine, if it doesn't, then we are there to cover. Last year he covered for us, now we will cover for him.”

Accustomed largely to playing on shirtfronts at home, India have encountered challenging pitches so far. When asked if the team hoped for batting tracks in the Super Eights, Suryakumar said his team is adept at handling various challenges.

“I think we are ready to adapt to any sort of wickets. If you see from the first game, we have been playing on different kinds of wickets. When we started our campaign from Wankhede till the last league game which we played, I think the wickets were not too challenging but a little tricky. But then, at the end of the day we played enough cricket to understand what kind of batting we need to do post Power Play and then take on and finish the game.”

Because of the challenging pitches, the Indians have also had to retune their strategy. Instead of going bang-bang from the onset, which was their template coming into the World Cup, they’ve embraced a lot more pragmatism to tackle the conditions. When asked why the middle-order isn’t able to play the high-octane cricket, Suryakumar said nothing is set in stone and they have recalibrated their goals based on teams and conditions.

“We are trying to explode from the start. Sometimes, we can get into a situation where we lose two or three wickets quickly. So we have to be a little smart team also to bat well between overs 7 to 15. We have enough firepower that once the base is strong, we can score around 60, 70 runs in the last five overs.

“Sometimes such tricky situations come in the T20 where you're two down, three down. So in the middle overs, you have to respect the game and keep your main game aside. The team has to play according to the requirements.”