A big part of the theatre of Abhishek Sharma's T20 batting lies in the anticipation of what he will do with the first ball he faces. To guess how his nerves function in different situations. If they even pay heed to situations. For those asking in the last couple of years, he's put it out plainly: trying to hit the ball hard remains the only real plan in this format. That's where he makes all his money.

Zimbabwe were aware. Sikandar Raza at mid-on asked his bowler Blessing Muzarabani to wait. Sanju Samson had turned over the strike to Abhishek for the first time on the evening in the middle of the second over and straightaway that prompted a field change. Raza moved his mid-wicket across, packing the off-side ring, with a deep cover also in place. On the leg side, Raza was the only fielder in front of square. If Abhishek looked to his right, he'd have found a big vacant estate to exploit. Muzarabani then ran in and delivered to plan: A length delivery outside the off-stump.

There's been a pattern to how oppositions have tried to get inside Abhishek's head in the last 20 days. USA threw in a deep extra cover instead of a more traditional deep point or deep third in the Powerplay, and Ali Khan lured Abhishek into finding him on the first ball. In Colombo, Salman Agha preyed on the opener's mind by bowling himself, an off-spinner, and taking him out first ball off a miscue.

Three days later in Ahmedabad, Netherlands borrowed from that playbook and Aryan Dutt cleaned him up. India's best batter of the last two years suddenly seemed to have developed a first-ball problem. But T20 comes with such vagaries - batters are found out every day and just as quickly devise solutions to perceived gaps in their game.

Raza would have hoped it wouldn't be this soon that Abhishek sorted it out. He had a deep cover waiting with that same anticipation for a ball to fly into his zone. But all he got was an anti-climactic push towards him for a single. Early in the next over, it appeared like Abhishek came into this game determined to be better aware of his surroundings. Tinotenda Maposa moved his deep cover to deep point, and Abhishek lofted a full ball outside off without the risk of a dismissal. Maposa stuck to that line, but Abhishek changed his angle. This time he went for a straight four over the bowler's head - the first of many such shots that would define his night.

Maposa's reset was also quick. He wanted more of this brewing duel. He tried what worked for South Africa in Ahmedabad - change of pace. There, the left-hander clearly short on confidence got his footing wrong often and eventually went in early for a shot against a knuckle ball he didn't spot. In Chennai, there was assuredness.

Maposa angled one across him at under 100kmph, hoping to bring his deep square leg into play, but Abhishek tonked it over the long-on fence. Muzarabani tried to lay out more landmines, with empty acres on the leg side once again begging to be capitalised on. The 6'8" bowler too ran his fingers over the ball to slow it down, and Abhishek just tucked it on the leg side and stole a single. It was a game where the left-hander hit pause on his urges to pre-meditate his way out of the crease and access the square boundaries.

Every pacer joining the attack seemed to have got the same memo - bowl slow and wait for a mistake. It was an idea backed by India's glaring fallacy - until this game, they had lost 14 wickets to pace-off deliveries from seamers (under 128kmph), the most by a team.

Yet, overcommitting risked predictability, and failed to get Abhishek to bite the bullet. Staying put in the crease afforded him a solid base and the avenue to time his bat-swing well even against such pace variations. Brad Evans saw his 102kmph delivery fly over long on in the fifth over. In the sixth, Ngarava pulled deep square leg in and sent backward point to the boundary. But Abhishek stayed tall, stepped back and sent a hard length delivery in the same outside-off channel for a straight six.

Long-off and long-on appeared after the Powerplay, and the baton passed to them to latch onto any error. Fields may have changed but Abhishek's overarching idea didn't. In the 10th over off Brian Bennett, another off-spinner, he stepped out of his crease for the first time and hit a six over the fielder at long-on.

In the 11th, he got to a 26-ball half-century, his second slowest in the format. But that wasn't even the most head-turning aspect of the innings. 34 of the 50 that Abhishek made were scored down the ground - a whopping 68% of his runs. The previous most at this stage of his innings in 11 half-centuries was a mere 35%. His dismissal on 55 off 30, also came with a shot down the ground that he couldn't put past Raza at long-on, sending him back to an ovation and a chant that rang out - a dramatic, pause-filled rendition of his three-syllable first name.

After three games in Colombo, the move to Mumbai to face West Indies, with those very short square boundaries, caught Zimbabwe off guard. In Chennai, Abhishek turned even a 77-metre straight fence into a problem.

"In this game nobody can guarantee that he will do it [score big runs] in the next match, but I think he is not far," batting coach Sitanshu Kotak had said of Abhishek before the game.

He wasn't. The heartbeat of India's top-order has found its rhythm again, just in time for what promises to be a defining World Cup night at the Eden Gardens on March 1.