The Punjab Kings spin bowling coach Sunil Joshi lauded Jitesh Sharma and said that he is one of the best wicketkeeper-batters in the country. Jitesh sealed a place in the India T20 squad in the last two series but did not get a game to play. The Punjab Kings wicketkeeper-batter can find a place considering his current performance in the ongoing IPL 2023.
“Jitesh has been wonderful. It shows his quality and one of the reasons he was picked in Indian team in place of Sanju Samson. In the last 18 months how he has performed in domestic and IPL and that is the reason he is being ahead of some other wicketkeepers,” Joshi told PTI.
“Jitesh was already in the team in the last T20 series. His role is to go out and express himself with the bat and enjoy, and he has been doing that for Punjab Kings”.
Jitesh has been batting in the ongoing IPL 2023 with a strike rate of 165 plus and is also the second-highest run-getter after skipper Shikhar Dhawan for Punjab Kings.
“Lets stick to the T20 format, he has done well consistently in this format in the last two years of IPL. That performance was recognized by the wise people who picked him in the Indian team,” said Joshi.
Joshi has played 15 Tests and 69 ODIs for India and has coaching experience since he worked with multiple domestic and international teams including Bangladesh. He also spoke about Punjab Kings’ spinners and said, “Rahul has been bowling really well. At times when they don’t bowl well they still get wickets and when they are bowling well they are not taking many wickets. So he has been bowling really well as per situations of the game. He may not be among the top wicket takers but he has the potential to grow immensely.”
“Harpeet (Brar) too has been improving day by day and bowling really well. In the IPL, one over can be a game changer, it can be in the middle or back end. My communication with the spinners is to increase the dot ball percentage where you put pressure on the batters to play shots,” he said.