जीतेश शर्मा को मुक्त करना

Untethering Jitesh Sharma

On a warm April night in 2023, as RCB and PBKS players drifted into post-match huddles along the boundary in Mohali, a promising relationship was initiated. Tamil Nadu batter Shahrukh Khan approached Dinesh Karthik, and beside him walked Jitesh Sharma, just short of turning 30, with questions to ask. It came right after Jitesh had hit 41 off 27, a knock that nearly won his team the match. Karthik spoke to him briefly about their shared vocation of finishing games.

A year later, in May 2024, Jitesh caught up with Karthik again over lunch in Dharamsala. By this time, a lot had transpired in Jitesh's career. A strong finish to the previous season of IPL had opened doors he hadn't quite expected to walk through: a spot in the Indian side at the Asian Games in October 2023. In the months that followed, six more T20I appearances came with smattering of promise but also struggles. The weight of an India cap sat heavily on his head, upsetting the rhythms of a game that once thrived on freedom. The result was an IPL 2024 that felt a little off-key.

"I think he was never someone who was desperate to play for India," Dinesh Karthik tells Cricbuzz. "And he was very free and he went about playing very confidently for Kings, and then made it to the Indian team. And then he knew that he was on the fringes when he didn't do as well, and the T20 World Cup 2024 was around the corner. That's when he became desperate. That kind of filtered into his performances which weren't as good as he wanted them to be, and he put himself under immense pressure."

During that lunch meeting, Jitesh dropped his guard in a quest to claw himself out of the burrow he felt he had dug. "I was quite fond of the kid," Karthik says. "Because he was very honest, very earnest and wanted to really improve and do well. But I think it got to a point where he wasn't sure how to move forward from there. I just took note of it and kept it."

When they next met in IPL 2025, equations had changed. Karthik had retired from the tournament and returned to RCB as a coach, with the intention of giving back what Abhishek Nayar had offered him in the late stages of his own career. Jitesh was RCB's pick, lobbied by Karthik during the auction strategy discussions as the ideal fit for the role he had vacated. It gave Jitesh the platform to pick Karthik's brains for longer than a meal's duration, and he dug in.

"This was part of his questioning to me: 'I want to do well. Obviously, I want to try and represent India. But I don't want to get too caught up and put so much pressure on myself that I'm not enjoying playing wherever I am playing.' And our journey as a coach and player very much started there as well, you know, having those conversations," Karthik recalls.

Conversations and details began to flow in this mentor-mentee setup. Jitesh embraced this new reality that went beyond the brevity of post-match exchanges.

"It takes a lot to believe and understand what people are saying," Karthik says. "In many ways, I'm sure at some point of time, we were all competing to play in the Indian team and he and I were competitors. So now when roles changed and he started working with me, I think he needed to cross that mental barrier that, you know, I will give him everything possible as a coach and he needs to trust me. And I think he had that from day one when we started practicing."

Once they got together to break his game down, Jitesh had only one agenda. He wanted to move beyond fleeting cameos on the scorecard. T20, particularly in his role, seldom offers promises. But Karthik was also the ideal guiding light to take him as close as possible to the reality Jitesh sought.

"What he wanted to work on was how do I finish a game? How do I get the team to above par? So he was playing a lot of cameos, never knowing how to get that big innings that was required to win a game or take the team far in the first innings. I kind of know what it takes to do that. With the skills he had, there was so much potential that I just needed to unlock it," Karthik offers.

As he gained a ringside view of Jitesh's methods and choices at the crease, Karthik noticed a pattern that needed addressing. Jitesh had showcased his death-hitting skills across IPL seasons leading up to his RCB bow, striking at 202.43, 183.60 and 181.57 in the three previous editions. But his strengths of targeting the straight boundary blunted his instincts to add unorthodoxy to his game.

"I think everybody thinks he and I are very similar as players, but actually, we are very different," says Karthik. "He was someone who could hit very well down the ground. He had a very good vertical swing. But what he didn't have too much of was any sort of innovative shots. It was almost a taboo because I think wherever he played, everybody had told him that you have so many good shots down the ground. Why would you try and do things behind? You need to try and understand what your strengths are."

Behind the scenes, the work began. Their sessions focused on tightening Jitesh's ability to see out a chase or bat through while RCB set a total, and it showed in flashes through the season. His volatile batting position, which Karthik has previously deemed as the toughest, demanded high risk and offered late entry points.

At Wankhede against Mumbai Indians, Jitesh arrived at the cusp of the death overs and went after some of the best, including Jasprit Bumrah, whom he hit for a six over long-on while camping deep in his crease. The biggest gratification though, came in Lucknow – a 227-run chase against LSG with Jitesh at the heart of it, undefeated on 85 off 33. Exactly a week later, he reached into his learnings once more in the summit clash. In the 17th over of RCB's innings, Jitesh arched back and scooped a Kyle Jamieson bouncer over the keeper's head for a six – a shot rehearsed all season, and unfurled on the biggest night.

"In my initial work with him, we went through that shot, how we need to practice, what it takes to use it and how to use it, when to use it, all of those kinds of things. Once he got the hang of how to do it, he became very good," Karthik revealed.

The reward for a solid season came in the form of yet another India call-up as one of the two wicketkeepers in the upcoming Asia Cup. For now, India have trusted Sanju Samson to don the gloves and open the innings, but Shubman Gill's return threatens to reshape that strategy.

"Sanju was playing because Shubman and Yashaswi were not available at that point," chief selector Ajit Agarkar said on the recent selection. "So was Abhishek. Abhishek's performances clearly make it hard to leave him out. Plus, his bowling is handy. But, like I said, he (Gill) was the vice-captain the last time he played T20 cricket. That was after the last World Cup."

Jitesh has known the joy of timing – being at the right place, at the opportune moment to push ahead. In 2021, his then-Vidarbha coach Pritam Gandhe suggested a role switch, from opening to the middle-order, giving him the cushion of facing the older ball that wouldn't swing and hamper his instincts. He agreed hesitantly, and it changed his life. Two whirlwind knocks at the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy in the presence of IPL scouts landed him at Punjab Kings. Two uninhibited IPL seasons then pushed him further up the ladder to the Indian team. After his initial stumbles at the highest level, he stands on that same precipice once again.

If Gill slots back into the opening role for India, the wheel of fortune could spin again and stop at Jitesh. And this time, India might just find that he is ready, and untethered.