Former India cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin heaped praise on Abhishek Sharma and even went on to compare him to the legendary Yuvraj Singh. This comes after Abhishek has made quite an impact in his first 17 T20I matches and has already cemented his place in the team's set-up in the format. The left-hander has so far hit 535 runs in his T20I career with two centuries and half-centuries each.
The 25-year-old has also maintained an explosive strike-rate of 193.84 in the shortest format and has the highest individual score of 135. Abhishek will definitely be looking to maintain this brilliant form in Asia Cup which will be his first major international tournament in T20Is.
Ashwin was left thoroughly impressed with Abhishek's batting approach and went on to state that the latter is an 'upgraded version' of former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh.
"I am keen to see if Abhishek Sharma's all-out attacking approach works on these surfaces. But what a player, he is an upgraded version of Yuvraj Singh," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
Ashwin's playing XI for UAE clash
Ashwin also predicted India's playing XI for their Asia Cup opener against UAE and gave one of the opening slots to Abhishek. He surprisingly snubbed Sanju Samson from his team and picked Shubman Gill as the Men in Blue's second opener. He gave the wicketkeeping duties to Jitesh Sharma. Other players in his side's middle-order include skipper Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya.
The former spinner picked up three spinners in his XI including Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav. He capped off the team with the pace duo of Arshdeep Singh and Jasprit Bumrah.
"Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma. Folks get scared with that opening combination. Shubman Gill knows he needs to make runs, and he will want to make runs. He is a run machine. He can make big runs at a lower strike rate," Ashwin stated.
"Abhishek Sharma will tee off at one end. Shubman Gill could be the glue around which the team is built up. In today's times, there is not a lot of need to become the glue in T20 cricket. But Shubman has it in him to play conventional cricket and still make a 100 off 55 balls," he added.
Ashwin's playing XI for UAE clash: Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, and Jasprit Bumrah.