The intent from Jitesh Sharma in his two T20I outings in this series against Australia has signaled a new dawn of attacking batting in India’s T20I team.
Unfazed by the pressure of playing a T20I series against Australia, the Punjab Kings keeper-batsman has gone about his business as he does in the IPL.
In the 4th T20I match against Australia, in Raipur, Jitesh Sharma cracked 35 runs in 19 balls, which proved to be decisive as India won the match by 20 runs. Then, in the 5th T20I, in Bangalore, where an unusually tacky surface on which the ball held a bit was offered, Jitesh slammed 24 runs in 16 balls as India posted a total of 160 runs after being in trouble at 55/4 at one point after the dismissal of Rinku Singh.
On just the third ball he faced, Jitesh Sharma creamed leg-spinner Tanveer Sangha for a boundary. He then smashed the bowler again, this time for a six. The right-handed collected a couple of more fours off the bowling of Dwarshuis and Nathan Ellis. He was aiming for another boundary but got dismissed by Aaron Hardie, caught near the deep mid-wicket fence.
This quickfire cameo from Jitesh Sharma allowed Shreyas Iyer to take his time to settle in as India had lost early wickets. But Jitesh didn’t rein in his intent and counter-attacked brilliantly.
Fans gushed in praise for Jitesh Sharma on Twitter for his aggressive approach:
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma(w), Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Arshdeep Singh
Australia (Playing XI): Travis Head, Josh Philippe, Ben McDermott, Aaron Hardie, Tim David, Matthew Short, Matthew Wade(w/c), Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Jason Behrendorff, Tanveer Sangha
At the time of writing, Australia are 118/5 in the 15th over. They need 44 runs to win in the last five overs.
