Abhishek Sharma credited the team environment at Sunrisers Hyderabad for backing the youngsters to go out and play freely. The world No. 1 T20I batter said that it was the 2024 IPL season that proved to be a game-changer in his career.
Abhishek came into IPL 2026 after a mixed campaign at the T20 World Cup, but on Tuesday in a match against Delhi Capitals he hit the ground running with an unbeaten 135 off 68 balls.
“Team coaches (Daniel Vettori) and captain (regular skipper Pat Cummins) created an environment where you can express yourself. I wanted to show my talent but you have to have backing from captain. The environment we had in SRH in 2024 was game-changer and it felt that they wanted youngsters to grow. Punjabi players enjoy freedom and Hyderabad team gave me that,” Abhishek said at the post match presentation.
After playing that match-winning knock, he didn’t forget to thank his father Rajkumar Sharma, who was also present at the ground.
“One needs to pan the cameras on him (father) to catch his expressions. He always sits close to the sightscreen and whenever I look at him from the ground, he has an advice,” he said jokingly.
SRH may have posted 242 for 2, but Abhishek said the pitch was not a belter rather on the slower and they had to adjust accordingly.
“The way we started, we had a plan to use the powerplay. It was a bit slow and we had to replan, we had matchups in our mind. Always been special moment scoring at this special ground and you don’t know par score till you play 20 overs.”
SRH skipper Ishan Kishan was more than pleased with the 200-plus total on the track.
“Don’t have much to say when you have 200 plus score on a track where pitch gets slower and its not easy to hit. Discussions is to take match by match. We have to give ourselves two-three balls to understand how the pitch will play. We just watch the ball and play our game,” said Kishan.
