HYDERABAD: Of all the performances on Wednesday night, Sunrisers Hyderabad would be most pleased with the way
Abhishek Sharma
shaped up against Mumbai Indians. The 23-year-old left-hander smashed the fastest fifty for SRH and the 16- ball effort fetched him the player of the match award.
Abhishek is one of the few domestic talents
Abdul Samad
,
Rahul Tripathi
and Mayank Markande are the others that SRH have persisted with despite inadequate returns since he joined them in 2019.
Priyam Garg
too was persisted with before he was discarded. This time, the move seems to have paid off.
With a good domestic season behind him, Abhishek looked a much better player. He was the second highest scorer for Punjab 485 runs with a strike rate of 192 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 with two tons and three fifties in 10 outings.
Batting at No.3 instead of opening seems to have helped Abhishek as he revelled in the company of
Travis Head
. “The domestic season gives us a lot of confidence. I enjoyed batting with Head. He is one of my favourite batters. He told me to go for it if it was in my zone. I am happy just to be getting my chances. It does not matter what position I am playing in,” Abhishek said.
A chat with
Brian Lara
helped too. In all his media interactions, Lara, who was the batting coach and head coach of SRH in the last two seasons, had only positive things to say about Abhishek despite his ordinary performances.
In 2022, Abhishek totalled 426 runs in 14 matches at an average of 30.43 and a strike rate of 133 with two fifties. In 2023, he batted down the order and made 226 runs in 11 matches. “I had a chance to talk to Brian Lara last night and that helped me massively,” Abhishek revealed after toying with the MI attack.
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