Twelve years ago, Gautam Gambhir began a competition with three consecutive ducks. Leading the Kolkata Knight Riders, he failed to score in any of his first three matches in the 2014 Indian Premier League.
Ahead of the fourth match against Punjab Kings — then Kings XI Punjab — the widely circulated joke was Gambhir was one duck away from recreating the Audi logo, and a couple away from resembling the Olympic rings. By the end of the season, however, he held the trophy aloft, and those early failures had long ceased to matter.
In the history of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, only two players had scored three consecutive ducks in their first three innings till yesterday. One of them being Uganda’s Roger Mukasa, and the other is Ashish Nehra — who, ironically, had offered Gambhir a duck preparation during IPL 2014 to ensure the KKR captain’s streak of ducks comes to a halt.
Now, Nehra and Mukasa find themselves in unexpected company — that of the world’s No. 1 ranked T20I batter, Abhishek Sharma. After failing to trouble the scorers against the United States and Pakistan, Sharma fell for a three-ball duck to Aryan Dutt in India’s 17-run victory over the Netherlands on Wednesday, 18 February, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Can Abhishek Sharma Do a Gautam Gambhir?
Only recently, Sharma played one of his many incredible knocks — a 35-ball 84 against New Zealand in Nagpur — which helped India win the game. Yet more striking than the knock itself was his candid admission about the limitations in his shot repertoire. In an era of tightly media-trained players, such frankness about technical constraints is rare.
I feel if you watch videos or if you watch your batting videos, you get an idea that where bowlers are planning to bowl to you or maybe where I'm going to play my shots. 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 practise a lot about that and I'll just execute it.Abhishek Sharma, after 84 vs New Zealand in Nagpur
The ‘few shots,’ which has earned Sharma 1297 runs in only 41 T20Is at an astonishing strike rate of 192.43, has not earned him a run at the T20 World Cup yet. His dismissal in the last couple of matches were also of a similar nature — wild swing against an off-spinner after a few dot deliveries. The only difference being, while he did manage to get some sort of a connection against Salman Ali Agha, he missed Aryan Dutt entirely. The dismissal against the USA does not fall into this category, for he holed out to deep extracover off pacer Ali Khan in that fixture.
Ahead of the match, batting coach Sitanshu Kotak found himself in a spot of bother, as most of the questions were focused on Sharma’s form — or, the lack of it. He emphasised on the need to not over-analyse. It remains to be seen whether the Indian team, and Sharma himself, make necessary tweaks to ensure that he, like Gambhir, wins a competition where he could not score a run in the first three matches.
Shivam Dube Does It All, and Some More
The opening batter’s form aside, India will be content with their fourth consecutive win in this competition, albeit it was not as comfortable a victory as many had predicted before the match.
India scored 193/6 after opting to bat first, with Shivam Dube leading the show with a 31-ball 66, which included four fours and six sixes. Following that, he also picked up the wickets of the Netherlands’ two leading scorers from this match — Bas de Leede and Zach Lion-Cachet. Courtesy of Dube’s two and Varun Chakravarthy’s three wickets, the co-hosts restricted the Netherlands to a score of 176/7, thereby securing a 17-run triumph.
At the post-match press conference, Dube credited his coach and captain for his form.
I worked really hard but there is something called support that is given by Surya and Gautam. So they have given me free hand. You go because they trust me a lot and So I need to back myself in that situation. I worked really hard on my fitness. Now I am bowling well, now I am batting well. My bowling has become better because of my fitness. So that is what I have worked and all credit goes to Gautam and Surya because they have believed in me that yes you can bowl for us.Shivam Dube
With this victory, India have finished the group stages as the Group A toppers. Their Super 8 campaign will commence with a rematch of last edition’s final against South Africa, at the same venue on 22 February. The caravan will then move to Chennai, where they will face Zimbabwe on 26 February, before a clash against fellow two-time champions West Indies in Kolkata on 1 March.
Speaking about the confidence in the team, Dube added:
The team is in a good mode. I don't want to say we are very confident because as a team we are thinking about the next match. We are not thinking that we are going to qualify and then we are going to play semi-final or final. As a team everyone is very confident and they are backing themselves and it's just about be ready for 22nd, play well, give your 100% on that day.Shivam Dube
The Netherlands' players, meanwhile, will hold their heads high after producing a competitive performance against the two Test-playing nations from the group — India and Pakistan.
Reflecting on the campaign, all-rounder Bas de Leede said:
It was amazing. I think all of the guys enjoyed it. It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play for so many people. I hope everyone soaked it all in. Moving forward, I think the associates have shown at what level associate cricket is at the moment. We can only ask for more and more opportunities against the best because that's ultimately the way that we're going to improve as a collective. But for us at the moment we've got nothing planned up until start of June where we have a next series for World Cup qualification. So yeah we'll have a couple of weeks off and then training starts again.Bas de Leede