AHMEDABAD: Luck. It seemed to have deserted Abhishek Sharma before the biggest tournament of his fledgling career. Stomach infections can be nasty pieces of work. It's generally not life threatening but it can leave a short-term impact. You can lose a few kilos, your training routine is affected and it can take time to rediscover that rhythm.
He was on drips and had to be hospitalised. That's a loss of a few training sessions. In the middle of all this, he was constantly travelling. Mumbai to New Delhi to Colombo to Ahmedabad. All those miles with a bug in the system did some damage.
Add to that the string of low scores and the world's No. 1 batter wasn't feeling it in terms of confidence and belief. Issues rose when facing off-spin, shots were half-hearted and it gnawed at him. This was supposed to be the 25-year-old's grand moment. His stage.
Luck.
It was half-past seven in front of over a lakh people at the new Motera on Sunday. The stage? The T20 World Cup final against New Zealand. After not having any luck for the last month, Sharma has had more luck in 30 minutes than people have had in their lifetimes.
In the process, the beleaguered southpaw belatedly rubber-stamped his arrival. Better late than never. On the biggest night of his life so far, he showed why the team management had persisted with him right through. That privilege wasn't given to their Test and ODI skipper, Shubman Gill, the next poster boy of Indian cricket. It wasn't given to Sanju Samson, the man who was dropped on the eve of the tournament. But Sharma's body of work was such that he had already made himself undroppable.
It's why the scores of 0, 0, 0, 15, 55, 10 and 9 didn't matter.
And, on Sunday night, he made one tiny adjustment and it gave him all the luck in the world.
Give himself time. It's often said that in T20 cricket, there's no time. But time is relative. In a Test, time is one session. 120 minutes. In this format, time can be three balls. Two minutes. It's the time he gave himself.
Off-spin, his kryptonite, was being fed to him by Glenn Phillips in the match's second over. Off his first two deliveries, he offered a straight bat. No exaggerated movements, nothing fancy, nothing in the air. It was against character but it was also a sign of a lesson learnt. In elite sport, you need to sometimes park your ego and here was Sharma parking his.
Off the third ball, it was a drive along the ground to long-off for a single. Deep breathes. Jacob Duffy, picked in place of Cole McConchie on a pitch offering true bounce and next to no spin, was tasked with bowling the third over of the powerplay. The hosts were on 12 for none. It was time to hit.
One thing the Punjab batter loves doing is back himself to clear the in-field against pacers. Blessed with timing and hand-eye coordination, he has a very clean bat-swing. Sometimes, you don't even need all of that. Just one of those would do.
His first boundary off Duffy, hit through the line, just cleared mid-on. His first pull of the night was skied towards deep square leg. It died on a diving Phillips for a couple. One more metre and Phillips will have gobbled that. In between, there was a lofted drive over mid-off.
He likes nothing more than jumping outside to pace. He did that to Lockie Ferguson in the next over and saw an edge fly over the keeper. The next ball disappeared for six, a pace off one in the slot. A switch had been silently flicked.
Never mind edges were landing in no man's land or sailing over the fielders' heads. The Kiwi bowlers perhaps didn't help themselves as they kept landing slot ball after slot ball. They also went pace off inside the powerplay, it was all a bit too predictable. Credit must also go to him as his initial movements to seamers — dancing down or moving across or exposing all three stumps to completely open the off side — messed with the Black Caps bowlers.
From 12 off seven, his scoring shots were 4, 6, 1, 1, 6, 1, 4, 6, 4, 2, 4, 0, 1 before the W. One of those fours was a mis-timed swipe which not only evaded the outstretched, diving hands of the fielder running back from square leg. It also hit him on the bounce before touching the Toblerone cushions.
Off the 98 runs before the first wicket stand was broken, he had burgled 52 off 21. It was also the fastest 50 in this World Cup and the fastest ever in a knockout game. The world's No. 1 batter had finally arrived.
Aided and abetted by some luck. He was probably due some.