New Delhi [India], March 19 (ANI): The swashbuckling Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) batter, Abhishek Sharma, who took the Indian Premier League (IPL) by storm over the last two seasons, will be hopeful of a good run of form in 2026 and the former South African cricketer AB de Villiers believes that Sharma 'needs to take more responsibility.'

Speaking on JioStar, de Villiers urged Sharma to take more responsibilities and said, 'He's 25, not 20 anymore. So, this is definitely the phase where he has to start taking more responsibility. There will be media pressure and people asking him to become more consistent. We know he was a little inconsistent during the T20 World Cup, which was disappointing. He had a good finish in the final, but otherwise, it was a quiet tournament for him. He was erratic at times.

Abhishek has made over 400 runs in both of the last two seasons, while playing for the SRH with a strike rate of around 200.

De Villiers acknowledged Sharma's good run in the last few seasons and said, 'Abhishek had an unbelievable IPL 2025, scoring close to a 200 strike-rate and averaging in the 30s, which is good for an opening batter scoring over 400 runs in the tournament, but it could have been better. Once again, that word consistency comes to mind. It's a personal challenge he will have to overcome mentally. Being the number one international T20I batter in the world comes with expectation, and that is the most dangerous word in cricket, when you feel like the whole world is closing in on you, and it's up to him to fight those mental battles throughout this coming season.'

On tightening his game plan, de Villiers urged that Sharma should understand the situation and respect the different match-ups.

He said, 'The answer to his success, and to the longevity of his career and consistency, lies in his understanding and respecting different match-ups. A bowler comes on, suppose it's Bumrah, and the game is on the line. How do you handle that? Do you attack him, or do you respect it and get to the other end? That is where you have to be true to yourself as a batter.

'You have to feel, 'There's a threat here, I'm not comfortable, I'm not going to give it away. I'll give it a couple of minutes and see if something else comes up.' I think that is the only missing link in his game still. It's about understanding that sometimes a bowler is going to get it right to you. That's where he needs to be clever and really believe in his game plan. He will have a blueprint that's worked for him over the years, and he just has to fine-tune that, believe in it more than ever, and stick to it,' said de Villiers.

SRH squad for IPL 2026 season:

Salil Arora, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen, Ravichandran Smaran, Aniket Verma, Abhishek Sharma, Brydon Carse, Harsh Dubey, Jack Edwards, Liam Livingstone, Kamindu Mendis, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Mavi, Pat Cummins, Amit Kumar, Krains Fuletra, Praful Hinge, Eshan Malinga, Harshal Patel, Sakib Hussain, Shivang Kumar, Onkar Tarmale, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari. (ANI)