T20 World Cup 2026 India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak allays concerns over Abhishek Sharma’s lack of runs

When Abhishek realized that it was futile to ask the flag-wavers to stop, he kept a new watch. Moving from off stump to off stump, he opened up his stance a bit and then went true baseball style – swinging at every ball that came his way. Arshdeep bore the brunt three times – sending him down the ground each time with a straight hit until he hit him fourth time with a slower ball, then showed his hands to the onlookers, as if to say how he had vanquished his good mate.

Abhishek quickly raced out of the net, took Arshdeep high and returned with two new bats to keep a fresh guard. This time, coach Gautam Gambhir walked alongside him and took a place behind the net, calling for a battery of spinners, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, and Kuldeep Yadav among them.

If there was a barometer to measure Abhishek’s intensity at the net session, he would probably have tipped towards the extreme end of the intention scale. Even from a good 120 meters away you could hear it ‘thanks’ poke through the insulated media center glass.

“The one thing we certainly don’t do unnecessarily is over-analyze,” Kotal said when asked about Abhishek’s patterns of dismissals. “Sometimes you (as batsmen) start making more assumptions than the opposition does. He’s got his plans sorted, he follows as he wants, and of course we discuss the opposition, their bowling, their strengths, what they’ve done – everything that’s normal for everyone, not just Abhishek.”

Between the two ducks, Abhishek was also hampered by an illness that forced him out of the game against Namibia. Against the USA, Ali Khan had him pick the lone fielder at deep cover for his signature walk-off shot. Pakistan started spinning early, and Salman Agha let him miss one to mid-on.

However, Kotak didn’t seem too worried about these patterns of layoffs.

“Before he got sick, he was making runs. In the T20 format too, sometimes a 10-ball 30 is just as important,” Kotak said. “It’s not like he hasn’t scored runs. T20 format is high risk, someone will come out (playing attacking cricket). If we stress so much on it (the occasional failures), players will be under pressure. He is in good form, he has clear plans, has a clear mindset and that is what matters for us.”

After the Pakistan match, coach Mike Hesson revealed that he had planned Abhishek’s dismissal for three days leading up to the match. Kotak laughed off suggestions that Abhishek was under pressure with oppositions analyzing his strengths and coming up with plans to outwit him.

“A lot of credit to Abhishek, if that’s how they plan so much against him,” he said. “I’m sure he’s doing so well they’re worried. We’re planning, he’s coming up with ideas too. I don’t really think in the last game they planned to get him out and he was caught in the middle of the road – you can’t plan to get someone out like that.

“He’s hit high on the bat. But if they’re that worried (that they have to plan), that’s a good sign for us, and a big credit to the way he’s playing.”

Acknowledging Abhishek’s style of play, Kotak also advocated for players to adapt quickly to conditions and situations, emphasizing how there was no single method to succeed in T20 cricket. I cited Suryakumar Yadav’s example from the USA match, in which he had to bat deep to lift India from 77 for 6 and 84 not out in India’s 161 for 9.

“I think playing aggressive cricket is important. But I don’t think plans change based on whether a player has failed or not,” Kotak said. “If anything, plans will change according to situations. It doesn’t matter if somebody scored runs for two innings or somebody, it’s important to adjust to what the team needs.

“Like the Mumbai game where Surya had to stay there for a while, and he had to go run-a-ball more or less for 30-35 balls – that’s playing to the situation. Whether someone scores runs or not is not important, which team at a time requires and players trying to execute it is more important.”