Talked in the huddle about having to be ruthless: Abhishek Sharma

Abhishek Sharma, the Indian opener, stressed on the importance of being ruthless throughout the game, acknowledging the ability of the West Indian batters to take the game away at any point with their attacking display. India edged ahead in the ongoing T20I series against West Indies with a 14-run win at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Sunday.

Despite being behind in the chase of 224, the visitors ran India close. “West Indies is such a team, you can never say that the match has come to us against them. This was also in our mind, because we saw in the last match that the batters who come, the conditions here, it is very easy for them to take a match [away] from anywhere,” Abhishek said following the game.

“So it was in our minds, when we were playing, we were talking about this in the huddle that we will be ruthless, we will not leave, and we will not give a single chance for a comeback.

“If you have seen today as well, the way [Shamar] Springer batted, we were really surprised [by] the way he played those shots. They weren’t easy shots. So you have to be on your toes all the time. If they are 50 for 5 as well, I think they have that capability to turn things around for themselves. In that case, we were very much prepared this time. If we got a good Powerplay in bowling, we can’t just give them one bad ball at that point of time. We just wanted to execute our plans and that’s what we did.”

Abhishek led the way with the bat, smashing a 30-ball 69, as India piled on 223, but it was a rather slow start by the hosts, who mustered only 13 runs off the first 14 balls of the innings, while also losing Sanju Samson for a 6-ball 3 in that period.

Shedding light on his uncharacteristic slow start, Abhishek said, “It was there in my mind that they had a plan against me. Obviously, an offspinner [Roston Chase] bowled in the first over. So it was just a battle between him and me. I gave him respect in the first over because I think he’s bowling really well in this series. So it’s just that the plan went pretty well for me as well, because in the Powerplay only, I was trying to just get a few runs. They had a plan for me, and I had to play better than that.”

However, mid-way through the third over he started to cut loose. He creamed a drive through cover-point for a boundary, and followed it up by lofting Chase for two sixes. In the company of Ishan Kishan, he added 108 runs off only 40 balls for the second wicket, which laid the platform for the massive total. Kishan too played his part with a brisk 18-ball 37. Even as both the batters studded their innings with more fours than sixes on the small ground, Abhishek denied it being an intentional effort on the part of the batters.

However, he credited the need to bring Kishan into his elements early in the game. “I have to make him [Kishan] laugh, I have to relax him a little. Because he likes to be in that zone when he comes to bat. But, I feel like there is a bonding between the two of us. We have had so many partnerships, even in the IPL as well. So, we understand each other pretty well.

“Obviously Ishan comes in when a wicket is down, in the first three, four balls, or in the first two balls, [there is] that little pressure [and] I just always want him to be released from that and just play the way he always plays. And I think like he did last year or so…we don’t talk much about the conditions and everything when we are out there. We just enjoy each other’s batting, and just complement each other.”