Anil Kumble made a big mistake in Abhishek Sharma's batting, told why despite being explosive like Sehwag, he is not able to score big.

New Delhi. Former India captain and coach Anil Kumble believes that young opener Abhishek Sharma will have to strike the right balance between his aggression and staying at the crease for a long time. Like Virender Sehwag did during his career. Twenty-five-year-old Abhishek has been among the most explosive top-order batsmen in recent times. They often get off to great starts with a high-risk, high-reward approach. However, he has mostly failed to convert his fast start into big scores.

Kumble said, 'I would compare him with a player like Virender Sehwag because he used to try to smash every ball. When he moved from Test cricket to ODI cricket and then to T20 cricket, he realized that he would have to set the pace of his innings a little differently.

He told 'Geo Star', 'But even then Sehwag used to play at a strike rate of 140-150. Abhishek Sharma should start thinking about this. He should ask himself, 'I am scoring runs at a strike rate of 200, there are expectations from me, so should I now play at a strike rate of 300 or not?' You just have to be normal. You have to play as many balls as possible.

According to Kumble, 'If Abhishek Sharma plays 20 balls in an innings, we know that he will reach close to the 50-run mark. We have seen the same with Sanju Samson, he does not get out on the score of 40 or 50 but takes the innings further and reaches the score of 85-90 and makes his innings memorable.

Kumble said, 'You need this kind of batting in the T20 format. Perhaps this season you will see the same kind of maturity in Abhishek which Sunrisers Hyderabad would also hope for. The T20 World Cup journey was nothing special for Abhishek and now he will be seen playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL starting from March 28.