India, July 27 -- T20s might be the most popular format today but the flourishing lifespan of a player, particularly that of a batsman, is quite short. One really hopes that's not the case with India opener Abhishek Sharma. In the last six T20Is for India, the left-handed batter has come up with a string of lowly scores: 10, 16, 3, 1, 8 and 2.

But it's not his scores that are alarming - players often go through such phases. It's the way he has batted. Eerily, he has batted and got out much in the same way right from the outset of India's overseas white-ball tour. India played two T20Is in Ireland, and he got 49 in one of the matches. Then, in the first two T20Is in England, he contributed 59 and 43.

Thereafter, it has been a huge slide....