Former India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has come out in support of opening batter Abhishek Sharma, calling out critics who referred to the left-hander as a ‘slogger’. The 39-year-old said that Sharma had a fine backlift, which he felt was arguably even better than that of his mentor, Yuvraj Singh. Ashwin referred to former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir’s comments, where had called the southpaw a slogger and how everyone had picked up on those words. “You can criticise parts of Abhishek Sharma’s game, but calling him a slogger would be completely wrong. He possesses one of the most elegant and powerful bat swings in modern cricket, arguably even more eye-catching than that of his mentor, Yuvraj Singh,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel “Ash Ki Baat”. Ashwin said that one aspect where Sharma could curb his batting is in his intent to go after the bowling of every ball. He felt that when someone was searching for runs, such instincts can come into a player’s batting. The 25-year-old had a torrid start to the ongoing T20 World Cup, where he made three ducks in a row against the USA, Pakistan and the Netherlands. He got off the mark in the World Cup in the Super 8 clash against South Africa in Ahmedabad, where he made 15 runs in India’s 76-run defeat. His first big contribution in the tournament came against Zimbabwe in Chennai on Thursday, where he made 55 off 30 balls to play a leading role in India putting 256 runs on the board. “It’s always great, you know, when you contribute for the team. And I was waiting for this moment for quite a long time now, so finally it’s happening. I’m really happy. I would say it wasn’t that intentional (talking about slowing down), but I just wanted to, you know, spend some time at the pitch because if you see, I haven’t even played 10-12 balls in the whole tournament yet. So I just wanted to spend some time and a special mention to the team, the way they’ve treated me so far. It was like at the end, you wouldn’t feel that I wasn’t scoring runs for the team,” Sharma had said in the mid-innings break on Thursday.Story continues below this ad India will next take on West Indies in Kolkata on Sunday, the winner of which will join South Africa as the other semifinalist from Group 1.
R Ashwin calls out Mohammad Amir for calling Abhishek Sharma a ‘slogger’: ‘Completely wrong’
