Hyderabad, Apr 21 (PTI): Abhishek Sharma believes that the game-changer in his career was the 2024 IPL season in Sunrisers Hyderabad when he felt youngsters were given the freedom and full backing to perform at their optimal level.
The world’s No. 1 ranked T20 batter once again dazzled with an unbeaten 135 off 68 balls in SRH’s 48 run win against Delhi Capitals.
“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.
His celebration was an ode to the ‘Orange Army’ and he also thanked his father Rajkumar Sharma for being 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.
On the game, he said that they had to plan differently as the pitch wasn’t exactly a pure belter.
“The way we started, we had a plan to use the Powerplay. It was a bit slow and we had to replan, we had match ups in our mind. Always been special moment scoring at this special ground and you don’t know par score till you play 20 overs.” His skipper Ishan Kishan was more than pleased to get a 200 plus total on this 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 2-3 balls to understand how the pitch will play. We just watch the ball and play our game,” said Kishan.
DC skipper Axar Patel rued about KL Rahul’s bungling of a run-out and Pathum Nissanka dropping a sitter which allowed Abhishek to let loose.
“Run-out chance missed and missed catch did cost us dearly. Had we taken those chances, he wouldn’t have reached where he did. But credit that he took those chances and scored those runs. But yes, good fielding is in our hands and we should have done that.” While DC’s choice of players is being criticised, Axar ruled out any possibility of change in core set-up.
“Not thinking about making any changes. When wicket is so placid, we should just take this as an off day and forget about it,” he told Sunil Gavaskar. PTI KHS KHS APA APA
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