Abhishek's genius lies in the simplicity of his shots

In a world where batting has grown to be infuriatingly complex, he achieves momentum with very few unorthodox shots

- Somshuvra Laha

By now you must be used to watching Abhishek Sharma go through his pre-batting ritual of flicking the ball between his hands with his eyes peeled to it.

The 'see-ball, hit-ball' theory possibly can't be distilled into that astonishing strike rate of 190 without this ritual.

More confounding, though, is how he achieves that momentum with very few unorthodox shots. In a world where batting has grown to be infuriatingly complex, Abhishek debunks the myth that one needs to be improvising shots to stay ahead of the bowlers. And he has been at it for nearly two years now.

On the heels of a stupendous 35-ball 84 against New Zealand in the first T20I at Nagpur, Sharma wasn't kidding anyone with the simplicity of his approach to batting.

“If you watch videos (of bowlers) or if you watch your batting videos as well, you get an idea where the bowler is planning to bowl to you or maybe where I'm going to play my shots,” he said at the presentation. “But it’s always about me backing my shots because I don’t have a lot of shots. It’s just a few shots. I'm going to practice a lot and just execute it.”