BEAUTY IN THE BEAST

In the last 15 days, he has moved away from the crease to sweep Muttiah Muralitharan for a four to fine leg, dispatched Shane Warne over extra cover, used his feet to cart Anil Kumbe to Row J of the mid-wicket stands, effortlessly scooped over Zaheer Khan’s head and tip-toed down the track to hit Mohammad Asif over long-on.
But despite the mind-numbing hotel-to-airport-to-stadium schedule of the IPL, where record-breaking spinners and pacers of repute spring out periodically like intimidating demons on a gaming console, Sharma hasn’t mindlessly banged the ‘enter’ key. There have been improvisations, but still his shot selection remains judicious. Almost refreshing, that the GenNext batsman has dispatched the cross-batted ugly audacity of the Twenty20 format with a perfect straight-elbow posture. More heartening is the fact that in this depressing scenario of technically perfect seniors resembling lemons sold to franchise owners, the new kid in town with the MCC coaching manual under his arm has been seen wearing IPL’s version of the yellow jersey — the orange cap.
After the inauspicious IPL debut of a three-ball duck on the dicey Eden Gardens pitch, Sharma’s run sequence has been 66, 36, DNB, 76, 57, 23 and 5. A strike rate of almost 150 and an average in the mid-40s means Sharma the batsman, like the other long-haired Sharma, the bowler, has proved that there were no false dawns Down Under earlier this year.
Less than a year back, Sharma had made his ODI debut in Ireland but this was followed by a frustrating wait on the bench as India’s middle order continued to be the domain of 30-plus legends or 25-plus youngsters finally cementing their place. Then, Sharma’s Twenty20 heroics saw him play all the games during the tri-series in Australia, where he hit two significant half-centuries. But there were no Man-of-the-Match awards and his high of scoring 66 in the final was overshadowed by Sachin Tendulkar’s epic 117 not out. And that meant Australia only saw the spade work for Sharma’s big launch in cricket’s big blockbuster — IPL.
Sharma’s inbuilt natural ‘switch off and switch on system’ and his almost fundamentalist mind-set of keeping his game absolutely simple has meant the youngster hasn’t been dazzled by the bright lights or the hype surrounding this high-intensity league.

Rave reviews
During the trip Down Under, former Aussie captain Ian Chappell had been impressed by the boy with a perfect left-elbow position and had speculated that Sharma would one day be the obvious replacement for Tendulkar at No. 4 in Tests. During the IPL, Sunil Gavaskar hasn’t been able to hide his excitement about the sighting of the next big Mumbai batsman.
With the youngster getting rave reviews from men who are tough to please, the logical question is: Can Sharma’s IPL high see him get elevated to the highest level in the near future? National selector Venkatpathy Raju is non-committal. “He is already there in the ODI squad. All I can say is that he is very talented and someone who has a lot of time to play his shots,” he says. Praveen Amre, who as a junior selector picked Sharma for the under-19 World Cup in 2006 and had a close view of the batsman at the senior level by the virtue of being the Mumbai Ranji coach, has no doubt that Sharma’s style is suitable for the longest version too. “He is someone like Virender Sehwag or Andrew Symonds. Because of their attacking style, initially there is a question mark over their adaptability in Tests. But look at the way Sehwag and Symonds have scored so heavily in the longer version. The only thing that Sharma has to take care of is shot selection. Once that is sorted out, I don’t think there will be a problem,” says Amre.

Self-made
Consistency was a problem area that Sharma faced during his last Ranji season, but his U-turn in international cricket has confirmed that the young man’s mature mind can work on his game while on the job. Mumbai maidan folklore has it that Sharma is a self-made batsman who was rarely seen chasing stalwarts for opinions. Former Mumbai batsman Shishir Hattangadi, as the manager of Sharma’s IPL team Deccan Chargers, explains how Sharma has held his own in a star-studded team in just 15 days. “There’s no confusion in his mind. If you see his Mumbai record, the one thing that could be pointed out was a lack of consistency. In the IPL he’s proven that he can be consistent. Having so many big batsmen around hasn’t flustered him. At the same time, he’s a very good listener when he’s being talked to,” he says.
Hattangadi speaks of the street-smart cricketer who he met as a junior some time back, and how the IPL experience has made him smarter. “He is very cool and composed before going out to bat. He is also fearless regardless of the opposition, and is not scared if he is about to face any big names,” he says. And he signs off by saying just three words: “Future Mumbai captain”.
Hattangadi can be pardoned of that quick future-telling because of his past and present alliance with Sharma, but there is still no denying that Deccan Chargers’s Mumbai import has used the IPL to take a few big steps towards stardom. He has used the T20 ‘license to hit’ prudently and moved ahead in the bumper-to-bonnet queue of lining up on Indian cricket’s highway. There have been whispers that Sharma’s easy-on-eyes style has seen him get extra focus, exaggerated assessment and all that has translated into a shorter struggle. The Kaifs, Rainas and Uthappas have been proven match winners but suddenly find themselves trailing in the race to be the ‘next big thing’ in Indian cricket. All because of a fantasy fortnight where Sharma has shown he isn’t all style but substance too.