{"id":724739,"date":"2026-01-27T19:01:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/724739\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:01:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:01:29","slug":"abhishek-sharma-has-no-weakness-new-zealand-coach-admits-bowling-to-him-is-very-difficult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/724739\/","title":{"rendered":"Abhishek Sharma has no weakness; New Zealand coach admits bowling to him is \u2018very difficult\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand\u2019s bowlers have been living in the harshest corner for modern T20 cricket: when the ball is flying everywhere and plans feel like they are expiring with each ball.<\/p>\n

\"AbhishekAbhishek Sharma plays a shot during the third T20I. (AFP)<\/p>\n

Ahead of the next match against India, bowling coach Jacob Oram said the biggest headache isn\u2019t just the runs conceded, it is how hard it is to even locate a clear weakness against an in-form Abhishek Sharma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer to that is simple: it is very difficult,\u201d Oram said during a press conference. \u201cWhen you look at his strike rate, it\u2019s hard, first, to identify any real weakness in his game, and then, secondly, to execute a plan against him. Execution is the hardest thing in cricket, whether you\u2019re batting or bowling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abhishek Sharma<\/a>\u2019s sustained aggression has set the tone for a series in which India\u2019s batters have forced New Zealand into constant recalculation. At that pace, every adjustment carries risk: miss full by a fraction and it is in the crowd, offer width and it disappears.<\/p>\n

Oram\u2019s view was that the battle is as much mental as tactical. A plan can be sound, but it\u2019s the next ball, delivered with a steady head, that decides whether it survives contact with a batter in full flow.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt same time, when there is a bit of chaos out in the middle, with the ball flying everywhere, it takes real composure to stay calm, remain controlled, remember the plans and then execute them. But this is all part of the learning process. This is exactly what this series was about, and despite the results, if we come out of it better for the experience and are somewhere near the Super Eights, the semi-finals and the final in March, then this period will have been hugely valuable for us, because we will have taken so much from it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Jacob Oram<\/a> framed the bruises of this series as rehearsal for March, when New Zealand will want their bowlers thinking clearly deep into the Super Eights and beyond.<\/p>\n

For now, the immediate reality remains the same: calm is not optional. It has to be manufactured, ball after ball, even when the contest looks like it is being played at someone else\u2019s speed.<\/p>\n

That \u201clearning process\u201d line is the thread New Zealand<\/a> are trying to hold onto as they look beyond the scoreline. The series has exposed how quickly a single over can swing in this format, but it has also underlined what Oram believes separates good attacks for great ones: staying calm enough to execute, even when the game refuses to slow down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand\u2019s bowlers have been living in the harshest corner for modern T20 cricket: when the ball is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[11445,1406,204503,215961,215960,215959,79,33964,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-724739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-abhishek-sharma","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-india-vs-new-zealand","11":"tag-indias-batters","12":"tag-jacob-oram","13":"tag-new-zealand-bowlers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-t20-cricket","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115968612205048529","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}