Former Indian assistant coach Abhishek Nayar has backed Abhishek Sharma for the fifth and final T20I against the West Indies. Nayar said the Indian opener should not think about his struggles in the last game.
Sharma, who is known to hit the ground running, could not bat at the top of his game as he meandered to 29 runs off 24 balls when the required run rate was more than 12 from the get-go.
Sanju Samson dominated the strike as Abhishek faced a handful of balls in the Powerplay overs. But the left-hander failed to find his timing after the field restrictions were lifted.
Abhishek Nayar said on JioHotstar when asked about Sharma’s struggle in the previous game, “Actually, you don’t. The interesting thing is that this is the format in which one player can change the game. Shai Hope scored a hundred for the West Indies, and all batters batted around it. It’s similar here. There are times when Ishan Kishan will take on that mantle. There will be times when Sanju Samson or Shreyas Iyer does it, but the point is that when someone is in great form, the other person does play second fiddle,” he responded.
“You want to complement each other. You want to make sure that your performances are team-worthy and not individual-worthy. That is something that we will always see with Abhishek Sharma. He will be disappointed because a set Abhishek Sharma generally takes the left-arm spinners to the cleaners. He will 100 percent reflect on it, and he will come back much stronger in the next game,” Nayar added.
Nayar said India should look to keep things simple tactically in the deciding T20I.
“You don’t have to panic. You want to keep things simple. You have lost, but you also have to remember that you have won two matches with the same team. It’s important that when you reach Bengaluru, you assess the conditions and understand how to score runs in those conditions, and what are the battles you face ahead,” he replied.
India and the West Indies will play the fifth and final match of the series at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, on Saturday.
