“Jab tak main khel raha tha mujhe khud pe poorabelieftha ke main toh kar doonga (as long as I was there I had the belief that I can totally pull this off).” That Ashutosh Sharma was brimming with audacity on Thursday is no secret.
Ashutosh had been wowing oppositions with his power-hitting at death for four successive games now but his nascent IPL career peaked when he slog-swept Jasprit Bumrah for a six en route another rearguard act for Punjab Kings. Whether it was the license of a free-hit that made him attempt his “dream shot off Bumrah” or the actual confidence of having admittedly rehearsed it multiple times over in nets, talking about it brings a smile back to his face even in the aftermath of yet another close defeat for his team. The same confident smile he sported immediately after, as the ball sailed over to the backward square leg stands, knowing he’s pulled it off “against the world’s best bowler”.
It was Bumrah menace in the PowerPlay that had resulted in him taking guard as early as in the 10th over, with PBKS pushed to the point of no return at 77/6 in a chase of 193. Ashutosh though was walking in to join a well-set Shashank Singh in the middle, his partner-in-crime in the Ahmedabad heist. And even if there was no encore on the cards, for the next eight overs, Ashutosh flipped the script on its head with some excellent reading and audacious strokeplay that had Mumbai Indians scrambling for answers.
Ashutosh made his intentions clear from the word go, helped by a hit-me length ball straying down leg from Akash Madhwal that he swung hard over the fine leg ropes. This was only the precursor though; a game-changing over awaited at death.
Romario Shepherd then started with a short and wide ball that was duly slapped, quite literally. But the highlight of this duel was the helicopter shot that he crashed over deep square-leg. MI skipper Hardik Pandya brought himself on for damage control, and saw another one of those helicopters flying over the leg-side ropes.
MI dialed Bumrah for rescue who managed to get rid of Shashank, and cut short a threatening partnership on 34, but Ashutosh wasn’t backing down. He anticipated a yorker next after the MI spearhead overstepped later in the over, took it on the full, got down on one knee and swept it for a fourth leg-side six, breaking into a smile knowing he’s outsmarted one of the game’s finest.
Shepherd returned with a back of length slower ball, and the 25-year-old pulled it to deep midwicket for another maximum. Predominantly a leg-side player, Ashutosh’s ferocious hitting had thrown the cat among the pigeons. That panic was setting in was very apparent from MI’s field placement when Gerald Coetzee returned to the top of his bowling mark, having already started off his over by conceding back-to-back boundaries to Harpreet Brar. MI had four fielders on the leg-side – fine leg, square leg, deep midwicket and long-on – for Ashutosh, all pushed back to the ropes and none inside the ring. But panic induced pressure and Coetzee erred with a juicy full toss from round the wicket that the PBKS finisher helped to the fine leg ropes nonetheless. Rohit Sharma had to run in to comfort the bowler, seemingly gesturing him to stick to his strengths. Coetzee resumed over the wicket with a slower ball outside off that Ashutosh failed to connect to.
And then came the 10-ball long Madhwal over that nudged PBKS ahead, even if momentarily so. Ashutosh was on strike only for the second half of it, but still managed to bring the equation down from 42 off 27 to just 28 off the last four overs. With the mid-off up on the circle, Ashutosh preempted the bowler’s line and length, backed away to make room off that attempted yorker and drilled it flat over the ropes to raise a 23-ball maiden half-century in IPL. To make matters worse, the bowler had overstepped and the Punjab batter reverse-scooped the free-hit over short third for his seventh maximum of the night that would have made a certain AB de Villiers proud.
Brar joined the fun by dispatching the slot delivery back over the bowler’s head for a third punishing six of the over, meaning PBKS asking rate was down to a manageable 7 an over and they could afford to see off Bumrah’s last over that saw just the three singles that came at the beginning. However, the three dots at the backend of it meant Ashutosh would be looking to break-free against the next bowler and Coetzee put five players on the fence with the clear plan to go short as he took the pace off. Ashutosh took the bait and holed out straight to deep midwicket, bringing curtains down on a spectacular counter-attacking knock and, with that, Punjab’s hopes.
Coetzee’s roar said it all, the ploy had worked. “He was cruising the game for them,” the South African said, and added: “He really brought [the attack] to us. So we just wanted to be really clear tactically of what we wanted to do and guess we executed it really well at the backend to shut it down.
“We realised from their innings and the mistakes that we made in our innings that you really had to use the big boundary. They did really well with taking the pace off, which is quite hard. So we just learnt from their innings and adapted our plans and it worked,” he said of the well-laid out plan for Ashutosh’s dismissal. “He didn’t hit it too badly, it was just pace off on the big boundary.”
Relief writ large on his face as MI collected the two points with a nine-run win eventually, Pandya tipped his hat off to the youngster. “[Ashutosh was] unbelievable. Coming and playing like that and hitting almost every ball off the middle of the bat and at ease knowing exactly what he wants to do. It’s wonderful. Very happy for him, [and] for his future,” the MI skipper said.
Ashutosh’s IPL career is only four innings old and he has been the face of the team’s death-overs batting in all of them, his nerveless 28-ball 61 coming on the back of 31, 33* and 31 previously to save PBKS the blushes in successive games.
“Sanjay [Bangar] sir told me that, ‘you’re not a slogger; you play proper cricketing shots and you should focus on [honing] that’. It was that small statement and a show of confidence from him that has made a huge difference for me and turned my game. I’m now just trying to follow that,” Ashutosh revealed of his conversations with the team’s Head of Cricket Development.
He is a man of few words, but a lot of self-belief. And most times, that’s all it takes to realise the bigger dream.
© Cricbuzz
