Abhishek Sharma, T20 World Cup 2026: Abhishek Sharma finally regained his form in India’s win against Zimbabwe in the Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup 2026. This tournament had not been anything special for Team India’s explosive opener Abhishek Sharma so far. However, now he managed to play a big innings. In this match played at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, Abhishek played a explosive inning of 55 runs in 30 balls, which included 4 fours and 4 sixes. This was his first half-century innings in the T20 World Cup, which proved to be a big relief for the team.
Gambhir-Surya’s trick worked
Before this match, Abhishek’s performance was quite disappointing, he was out at 0 three times in a row and played an inning of 15 runs. But captain Suryakumar Yadav and head coach Gautam Gambhir made a smart change, which proved beneficial for Abhishek Sharma. He called Sanju Samson back into the playing eleven and also gave him a chance to open in place of Ishan Kishan. In this way, right-hander Sanju Samson came to open along with left-hander Abhishek Sharma.
Abhishek Sharma got benefit
This change was strategic. In the last few matches, the opposing teams, seeing two left-handed openers in India’s top order, were starting to bowl with off-spinners, due to which Abhishek used to get trapped against spin. But this time due to Sanju Samson being right-handed, Zimbabwe did not get a chance to use off-spinner in the powerplay. Off-spinners are not that effective against right-handers, and Sanju plays spin well. The result was that Zimbabwe had to start with fast bowlers, which suits Abhishek.
Abhishek took full advantage of this and batted aggressively. Sanju also scored 24 runs in 15 balls, which included early sixes. Together they made a partnership of 48 runs, which became India’s best opening partnership so far in this tournament. India scored 80 runs in the powerplay, which proved to be a strong base. This inning gave new energy to Abhishek and helped the team score a big score of 256 runs.
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