Rohit Sharma is a classical player, opines Zaheer Abbas

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma has a lazy elegance in his batting, which is always pleasing to the eyes. He might not have been able to get his mojo early on in his career but he made up for it in the later years, scoring bucket loads of runs. Even during his lean phase, there were no questions regarding his technique but was only a question of finding his form. Recently, he was awarded the highest award for sportspersons in India - the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. 

Pakistan batsman Zaheer Abbas named Rohit as the Indian batsman he ‘really likes’ and heaped praise on India’s limited-overs vice-captain, terming him a ‘classical player.’ Abbas, who is widely renowned as the ‘Asian Bradman’ for scoring 108 first-class centuries, pointed out that Rohit has a wide variety of shots, which enable him to ‘fail rarely’.

“Rohit Sharma is a classical player. I really like him. He creates strokes, plays on the merit of the ball,” said Abbas in a YouTube show called Caught Behind.

“My eyes look at how he creates strokes, how he hits his sixes and boundaries. The players who have such a wide range of strokes can play in all formats, he rarely fails.” 

Abbas, who scored 5062 runs in 78 Tests at an average of 44.79, cited the example of India’s limited-overs vice-captain and advised that if Pakistan batsmen feel he is good then they should follow him.

“If you say that Rohit Sharma is good. Then you should learn from him. Watch him, see how he plays, observe his technique. I used to watch and learn from Hanif Mohammad, Rohan Kanhai. I didn’t go and train with them, I just learned after observing their batting,” he said.