Abhishek Sharma Pte.Image Credit source: PTI
Team India will enter as a contender for the title in the T20 World Cup to be held next year. One reason for this is his being a former champion, while the other reason is that the tournament is being held in India and Sri Lanka only. But a big reason is the presence of Abhishek Sharma. This young left-handed opener has created a stir for the last 2 years with his explosive batting. But before the World Cup, Abhishek is showing that he can help the team win with batting as well as bowling. He did something similar in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT 2025) where he first defeated the bowlers with his explosive batting and then did wonders with his bowling.
Before the T20 series against South Africa to be held from 9th December, Abhishek Sharma is showing his magic in domestic cricket. Abhishek, who had already won accolades by scoring a century in 32 balls in the domestic T20 tournament Mushtaq Ali Trophy, this time did wonders against Puducherry not only with batting but also with bowling and on the basis of his all-round performance, the team won by 54 runs.
Abhishek, who was captaining Punjab in the tournament, put his team out to bat first in this match and attacked himself. Although Punjab had lost the wickets of both its openers including Abhishek only till the third over, but till then the captain had done his job. Even before getting out on the 15th ball of the match, Abhishek hit fours and sixes. The left-handed opener hit 4 fours and 3 sixes i.e. 7 boundaries in the innings of just 9 balls and scored a total of 34 runs. All his runs came from the boundary and he scored these runs at a staggering strike rate of 377.77.
After Abhishek, the rest of the Punjab batsmen also played strong innings and the team scored 192 runs in 20 overs. After this it was Abhishek’s turn to spin. The Punjab captain himself started the bowling and took the first wicket in the fourth over itself. In the next over, Ayush Goyal took 2 wickets, while Abhishek, who returned in the third over, again did wonders and took his second wicket. Abhishek did not stop here and he also bowled the fifth over and this time dismissed Puducherry captain Aman Khan.
Overall, Abhishek bowled 4 overs in the match and took 3 wickets while giving only 23 runs. Apart from him, Ayush Goyal also took 3 wickets, while left arm spinner Harpreet Brar also got 2 wickets and the entire Puducherry team collapsed for just 138 runs. On his behalf, Sidak Singh played an inning of 61 runs but it was not enough. This is Punjab’s third win in 5 matches in the group stage of the tournament, while it has lost 2 matches. In this way, at present the team is in second place after Bengal in Elite Group C.