Over the course of his hundred against England, Abhishek Sharma married aesthetics and adventure, technique and enterprise like few have done before.
Some records survived as Abhishek continued to take on England without batting an eyelid. Yuvraj Singh still has the fastest fifty for India in the format and Rohit Sharma the fastest hundred. Abhishek is at second place on both lists but no better.
Of course, Abhishek does have the highest score for India. And the most sixes in an innings. But then, this is T20 cricket. Batting records fall here every day. Yet, it was not the usual brand of slogging you see everyday in T20 cricket.
Maybe the highlights package – why do they make them this short these days? – will tell some of it. Look at his 13 sixes.
It began with that Jofra Archer over. When Archer bowled short, Abhishek square-cut for six. When Archer responded by pitching up the next ball, Abhishek merely made room and dispatched the ball over extra-cover.
Mark Wood, quicker than Archer, bowled short too. Abhishek pulled him for four. Wood pitched up. Abhishek hit him straight back to the fence. Wood took the pace off. This one worked, for he managed to beat Abhishek, but not the one after that: it sailed over the extra-cover fence.
Abhishek kept strike. Who next? Jamie Overton? Two attempts, both too full, both sent back the way they came, across the ropes. Not one edge, not one loose shot, not one stroke of luck, and Abhishek had raced to his fifty before England were halfway through the fifth over.
Of course, Jos Buttler had to turn to Adil Rashid immediately after the powerplay was over. The matchup was in Abhishek’s favour, but this was Rashid, a white-ball leg-spinner like no other, equipped with every trick, every counter in the book.
You could see Abhishek eye the long-on boundary. The first ball, he drove there for a single. When Abhishek returned to strike, Rashid did what most leg-spinners would have done against left-handers eyeing long-on: he tried the googly. What was more, he had a fielder there.
But Abhishek went for it... and cleared the fielder. When Rashid came on to bowl the next ball, his mind was almost certainly made up: this one disappeared over the straight boundary.
Liam Livingstone brings with him a mixed bag of off-breaks and leg-breaks. Unfortunately, his attempt was too slow. Abhishek had far too much time in his hands before yet another drive into the stands. Livingstone tried to make Abhishek stretch outside the off-stump as much as legally possible: Abhishek needed only his top hand for this six over cover.
Brydon Carse, England’s bowler of the series, was not spared either. The hundred followed soon. The greatest cricketing son of the city where Abhishek shone tonight, was left in awe.
Kevin Pietersen could not remember an international batter playing an innings like that before. After the match, head coach Gautam Gambhir told the presenters that he could not remember a better T20 innings.
And of course, there was his mentor, the only Indian with a faster T20I fifty.
But perhaps just as important were Sunil Gavaskar’s observation as the commentators were all in praise. “Proper cricketing shots,” reminded Gavaskar. It is not a phrase legendary Test openers reputed for defence and technique use to describe high-risk hundreds by T20 openers.
Of the 135 runs Abhishek scored, every single one was between backward point and square leg. There was not one was off a streaky edge. Of his 13 sixes, two were square cuts: the other 11 were all in a slightly wide V, between cover and long-on (not even mid-wicket).
You can see Gavaskar’s point. It was not merely a fast innings or a big innings. It was all that and an unusually correct innings as well in the traditional sense. It might also have created a problem of plenty for the Indian team management – though they do not play T20Is for some time.
The future is bright
Abhishek strikes at 180 in T20Is and 163 in all T20. While these are unusually good numbers, what has stood out out in almost each of his big innings is the where and how of it all. His technique gets praised in T20.
In 2024, along with Travis Head, he had formed arguably the most devastating opening pair in IPL history. The clean hitting was out there for everyone to see, but a very logical counterargument was the absurd scoring rate throughout that Impact-Player-infused edition of the league.
Rohit’s retirement from T20Is opened up a slot. When a young Indian side toured Zimbabwe immediately after the T20 World Cup, Abhishek was in it.
Abhishek hit a hundred in his second T20I. Impressive, no doubt... but once again you could see the counterargument, yet again, a logical one: it was not the greatest of opposition.
As is often the case with batters who do not hesitate to hit early in their innings, a string of low scores followed. The average dropped to 23.27. While not the most significant parameter in the format, low averages still raise eyebrows. Moreover, Sanju Samson and Tilak Verma emerged as the heroes of the South Africa tour, while Yashasvi Jaiswal loomed large.
In this intense contest for the top three – Suryakumar Yadav also likes batting there – it can be argued that Abhishek’s bowling gave him the edge when India began the series against England. There was a point to prove, for a slot in the team to own.
One can argue that his 34-ball 79 in the first T20I came when India had to chase only 133 at Kolkata. At Mumbai, however, he amalgamated traditional batting and power-hitting in a way few have done before.
The future looks bright.
