Gautam Gambhir lauds Abhishek Sharma’s explosive century, vows to back fearless cricket: ‘Mantra of our side is…’

Indian opening batter Abhishek Sharma’s blazing ton during the 5th T20I clash at Wankhede stadium has got a vote of confidence from coach Gautam Gambhir who called it the best he had seen from a batter against 140-150kph bowling. The Southpaw had scored 135 runs off 54 balls on Sunday which helped the Men in Blue reach a total of 248 in their 20 overs and subsequently defeat England by 150 runs.

Gautam Gambhir lauds Abhishek Sharma

“I haven’t seen a better T20 hundred against bowlers who are bowling at 140-150 kph consistently.” Gambhir told the broadcasters while speaking about Sharma’s century.

The India head coach also clarified that the Indian team will keep backing young players who want to play fearless cricket. He said, “We are going to do this going forward, got to play fearless cricket. We want to keep backing players like Abhishek Sharma. We have to be patient to with these boys. Most of these boys believe in the ideology of playing fearless cricket,”

Gambhir also coined ‘being fearless’ as the mantra of the Indian team, saying, “There will be times when players throw their wickets, players might go their lean patch but that is where management comes – we need to back them, that is the mantra of our side, being fearless”

Abhishek Sharma’s scintillating knock:

Abhishek Sharma was in sublime form from the first ball in Mumbai as the left-hander raced through England’s pacers, prompting skipper Jos Buttler to bring in Liam Livingstone in the 5th over to stem the flow of runs. Sharma, however, continued his onslaught and reached his half-century in just 17 balls, just shy of his mentor Yuvraj Singh’s record 12-ball fifty.

While the wickets kept falling at the other end, Sharma did not lose focus and only slowed down a little as he approached his century. The young batsman reached the landmark in just 37 balls, earning a warm round of applause from the Indian dressing room.

Wickets kept falling and the pace of India’s innings slowed from 15-16 runs an over to a final total of 247/9 from 20 overs, but even that proved to be a mammoth total for England. While Mohammed Shami made the first breakthrough for India in the third over, all the bowlers from Varun Chakravarthy to Shivam Dube contributed to the unravelling of this England batting attack. Even Abhishek Sharma chimed in with 2 wickets in an over.