Air Abhishek

Is Abhishek Sharma Viv Richards or Steph Curry?

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Abhishek Sharma hits the ball in the air. His batting is not earthbound; it’s not under the same gravitational constructs as other players. There are no sighters, or playing it safe; he doesn’t count down from ten. He walks out to bat and presses lift off.

If that doesn’t work, he presses it again and again. The idea of wasting balls sickens him. Not maximising a bad delivery is the worst. And many times, a four is just a failure. Abhishek Sharma sees the ball, and then he wants it to fly.

And no player in history has ever lofted the ball more than Abhishek Sharma. He is the first cricketer to live in the air.

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Is Abhishek Sharma Viv Richards or Steph Curry? That was a question asked by our producer Rakshit Bhatt.

It might seem random, but his question was whether Abhishek is a freak outlier or someone who is actually just natural product of the way the sport is evolving.

Viv Richards scored faster than anyone in Test cricket ever had, but it didn’t change how people batted. It was a quarter of a century before anyone caught up, and now 50 years later only two have been at his pace or quicker. He was the greatest hitter the game has seen, but he was also one of one.

There was no Viv just before him, or just after him.

Steph Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history.

The year before he came into the league, NBA teams attempted 18 three pointers a game. At his peak, Curry was at 12.7. But the teams were playing 48 minutes, and Curry only plays around 32. 2008/09 teams attempted 0.37 shots from beyond the arc, Curry was also at 0.37. So it sounds like he was an outlier.

But Curry is more like Adam Gilchrist. Many people suggest the keeper changed batting for his kind, but there were more runs every decade from the glovemen. Gilchrist was a continuation of people valuing runs over keeping.

The same happened to Curry. Teams were taking more threes, so they valued shooting more. Offences were now not based on being ball-dominant players who could get to their shot, or seven-footer scorers; Curry was the right guy to move that forward. But since his debut, basketball has had Damian Lillard, Luka Dončić, Anthony Edwards and many others who shoot around ten threes a game.

It doesn’t mean Curry and Gilchrist aren’t outliers, but there was already a movement that they got on board with. Viv was a one-man tsunami.

Abhishek is still early in his career, but we also see Sooryavanshi coming through, so it seems this is more Curry-like as the canary in the coal mine. Viv was a freak outlier, but Abhishek and Curry are harbingers of the future.

Travis Head is still rooted in the past.

Travis Head likes singles. Travis Head faces a couple of balls before attacking. Travis Head respects good deliveries. Travis Head exploits the field. He still whacks them, but there is an older style to it. He’s like a hybrid of the batting methods from 2008-2020, West Indian, English and Australian.

He might be better at it than most, but if you look at true dots to sixes, a method we use to work out player styles, there are other guys like him. There is no reinvention of the wheel with him, just a perfecting of it.

Whereas the other half of Travishek really doesn’t have many players like him. Surrounding him are the recently promoted king of the first over Mitch Owen, and Finn Allen. That is it.

These three are thrashers, going at nearly every ball delivered. They are still rare, but Abhishek is not alone. He is very much the face of this new movement.

It isn’t that Head and Abhishek are completely different. If you look at their control percentage on attacking shots, and also how often they play them, it’s pretty similar.

It’s the same when you look at their average for these kinds of shots. They attack more than most, and do it at a staggering level.

But when you look at the impact, that is where the distance between them comes in. Abhishek Sharma is scoring at .6 runs a ball better than expected. And considering his opening partner is often Head, Sanju Samson, or Ishan Kishan, he’s still sticking out. This is a crazy number.

And this is because he maximises his maximums. His ability to whack sixes is obscene for any hitter. But most powerplay batters attack fours, because the field is up. It’s like no one told Abhishek this was an option, so he clears the fielder, the ring, the boundary rope, the fence, the security mesh and a bunch of spectators.

He smashes sixes 82% more than expected from seam bowling. Which would be the freakiest thing on here, if not for the fact it is 143% more against spin. Against turn, he basically just waits to hit a six. If something really goes poorly, he takes fours. Against pace, he is at par for singles, but better than expected at everything else. He is going to face less dots than most, hit more sixes than almost anyone, still get ones, but somehow find twos and threes, and if he has to, he’ll mishit some fours.

This is the map of a madman.