Kolkata, Feb. 4 -- Lay out a plan, set yourself milestones and work towards the goal hoping that luck too will side with you-individual excellence in a professional team sport normally revolves around these basics. Avishek Sharma plots a different course though. To manifest success, Abhishek already imagines himself at the top, consequently allowing himself a psyche that frees him up from the burden of performance for survival. To the world, Abhishek may be barely 18 months old in international cricket. Internally though, he is already at his peak, hence the drive to stay ahead of the competition. "Shikhar (Dhawan) paaji was the one who taught me to manifest success," Abhishek said in an interview on the YouTube show 'Breakfast with Champions' last year. "But the kind that is already achieved. He called me home, advised me to take up journaling and visualise success. The first type is normally the kind of success yet to happen. But he advised me to already tell myself that I'm India's best player, that I have helped India win matches, and I have my choice of top endorsements." That piece of advice changed Abhishek's life forever. That he has been able to train his mind on these lines so early into his career alone makes Abhishek a rare cricketing brain. But also understand the factors working behind the scenes. Born in Amritsar, raised by a hard nosed cricket nut father who had his own academy, and later mentored by Yuvraj Singh in a highly competitive Punjab cricket landscape, Abhishek had no other option but to forge a decisive path ahead. First through domestic cricket, then IPL and finally international cricket, one season at a time, the obtrusive way. From very early it was clear that Abhishek's novelty was beyond the sum of his runs or the strike rates he has been manufacturing. In his shot selection, he is both old-fashioned and new-fangled, his vision and instinct stemming from rare clarity of thought. Within a few months Abhishek has transformed himself into a batter of unrelenting reliability who believes in blending a classic bat swing with modern-day audacity. Spinners stumble, pacers are forced to vary lengths, field settings feel outdated the moment he gets going. The modern gospel of victory in T20 cricket is built on the ability to take off from the first ball and never look back. Safe to say Indian cricket rose to that echelon once Abhishek started opening India's batting. From 2020 till Abhishek's debut, India had crossed 200 or more 18 times. Since then, India have already achieved it 13 times in less than half the time, Abhishek scoring fifty or more in five of them. It matters that two out of them were hundreds. More compelling are the strike rates of his top five scores-250, 212.76, 240, 232.35 and 202.7. Basically, the higher Abhishek scores, the quicker he goes. All through basic shots though, nothing too extravagant. "It's always about me backing my shots because I don't have a lot of shots," Abhishek said during the recently concluded series against New Zealand. "It's just a few shots. I'm going to practice a lot and just execute it." Notwithstanding what Abhishek says, you can't always train for this. Nor can you preempt this brand of batting as a bowler. Exceptional talent that Abhishek is, the onus basically was on coaches and selectors to fasttrack him. Ricky Ponting was there before anyone else. "I was his first IPL coach. He debuted with me, I think, as a 17-year-old at Delhi, and made an immediate impact," Ponting said in the ICC Review. "I think he hit his first ball for four or six straight back over the bowler's head with that classical sort of straight bat and held the pose. And you could just see then, as a 17-year-old, that there was something extra special." Ponting wanted to hold on to Abhishek, but Delhi had other ideas. "We ended up trading him away from Delhi, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded and said, 'Please don't do this. We've got to (keep him), there's an absolute superstar in the making here'," he said. India too needed to wisen up, especially on the heels of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retiring from the format. But what could well have been an unpredictable transition turned into a makeover so pulsating that India could afford to dream again. Central to this upgrade is Abhishek's free ranging wheelhouse of shots. He can flick, glance, lift inside out and pull. Long hands acting as levers, aided by a little side step or a small skip down the pitch, Abhishek rarely allows the bowler to dictate in Powerplays. Every now and again those highs have lapsed into a reality where Abhishek's stay has been briefer than a blip. But Abhishek's charm is in not letting those setbacks peg him back. Poster boy, demolition man, Abhishek is not just transforming India's fortunes, this is a man who is keeping captains on edge all the time....