Abhishek Sharma broke the record for the highest individual score by an Indian in the Indian Premier League as Sunrisers Hyderabad gunned down a monster target of 246 against Punjab Kings in Hyderabad on Friday. Abhishek Sharma’s 55-ball 141 is now the third highest score by a batter in the IPL after Chris Gayle’s 175 not out and Brendon McCullum’s 158 not out. Sharma’s innings was laced with 14 fours and 10 sixes.
This was the second highest successful run chase in the history of the IPL. Last year, Punjab Kings had set a new record when they chased 262 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens.
TraviShek wreck havoc
The SRH chase was constructed entirely by their openers – Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head – who were out of form leading into this game. Last summer, it was these two at the top who destroyed bowling line-ups regularly as SRH stormed to the final which they lost to KKR.
Up against a good line-up, Head and Sharma had no choice but to go hammer and tongs. The pair added 171 off 12.2 overs before Head departed for 66 off 37. Abhishek Sharma then took it upon himself to take SRH to a sensational victory. This innings was a reminder of his assault against England in the fifth and final T20I against in Mumbai earlier in the year.
Only this time, Abhishek Sharma celebrated with a small note after getting to his hundred. For a few moments, commentators tried to guess what the message was until it was clear: This is for the Orange Army. By the time Sharma fell for 141, the home crowd stood up to applaud one of the greatest T20 innings of all time, Arshdeep Singh and other opposition players rushed in to congratulate him and the young batter had the world at his feet.
So dominant was Sharma’s innings that SRH only needed 24 off 22 balls in a chase of 246. Victory by then was only a matter of time and the result was taken for granted. The celebration which followed was still an ode to Abhishek Sharma’s magical knock.
Shreyas Iyer led the way for Punjab Kings
Not for the first time this season, PBKS’s innings was headlined by Shreyas Iyer. He played a captain’s knock on a placid pitch where he knew the Travishek threat was real. The platform was laid by Priyansh Arya with a rapid 36 which came close on the heels of a stunning hundred against Chennai Super Kings. Prabhsimran Singh smashed 42 off 23 before Iyer took over.
In PBKS’s first match of the summer, Iyer had finished with 97 not out and then struck another fifty. On Saturday, Iyer hammered 82 off 36 but he did not get any support from the likes of Shashank Singh and Glenn Maxwell. Harshal Patel did a lot of damage to the PBKS middle-order with four wickets including those of Shashank, Maxwell and Iyer.
It was Marcus Stoinis who helped PBKS to another 240+ score in the tournament with four successive sixes off the last over from Mohammed Shami, who finished with the second most expensive spell in IPL history.
