"Not doing justice to their talent" - Indian legend backs Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Suryavanshi for ODIs

Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh feels that Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ishan Kishan should be regularly picked in the ODI team. According to Yuvraj, India will be underutilizing their talent if they don't do so.

Abhishek and Suryavanshi have only played T20I cricket for the Men in Blue so far. As for Kishan, he has the experience of 32 ODIs in which he has scored 1,107 runs at an average of 42.57 and a strike rate of 107.05, with two centuries and seven half-centuries.

On the sidelines of the launch event of Protocol 32 in Mumbai on Friday, October 30, Yuvraj made a big statement on Abhishek and Suryavanshi and said (via ANI):

"I would love to see him (Abhishek) in the ODIs, to be honest, and I have said this before that if we are not picking guys like Ishan Kishan, Abhishek and Vaibhav Suryavanshi in 50-over cricket, then somewhere down the line we are not doing justice to their talent.

"I understand we have some great players and it is hard to make a spot for them. I think the way they (young batters) are performing, hopefully, they should be in the squad soon. Whatever he (Abhishek) has achieved is because of his hard work, and credit goes to him," the two-time World Cup winner went on to add.

Abhishek and Suryavanshi are unlikely to find a place in India's ODI setup soon. As for now, Rohit Sharma and skipper Shubman Gill look set to open the batting in the 2027 ODI World Cup, with Virat Kohli occupying the No. 3 slot. Even Yashasvi Jaiswal is finding it tough to secure a spot in the ODI line-up despite producing stellar numbers in limited opportunities.

"Must have worked four times harder than an average player" - Yuvraj Singh on Abhishek Sharma

Yuvraj has been a mentor to Abhishek and the former's influence is visible in the opening batter's success. However, Yuvraj refused to take any credit for the batter's performances. He attributed the same to Abhishek's hard work and said (via the aforementioned source):

"He's worked really hard. The guy who's been the number one player for the last two or three years must have worked four times harder than an average player. If anybody wants to be that kind of player, they just have to work four times harder. There's no secret to it."

In 71 T20Is, Abhishek has scored 2,267 runs at an average of 33.33 and a strike rate of 196.61, with four hundreds and 14 half-centuries.

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