Sunrisers Hyderabad opener Abhishek Sharma set the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium ablaze when he played the innings of his life, scoring 141 runs off just 55 balls to set the record for the highest individual score by an Indian in the IPL. While Abhishek’s century has rightly garnered a lot of attention online, what’s being talked about even more is the note the young batsman is holding immediately after hitting his first IPL ton.
After hitting Yuzvendra Chahal for a single to bring up his century, Sharma pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to the crowd, “This one is for the Orange Army”.
The unusual celebration by Abhishek also took PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer by surprise who asked centurion for his slip that and read it in the middle of the pitch.
After the match, Abhishek’s opening partner Travis Head revealed that the young batter had been carrying that slip of paper in all of SRH’s matches.
“The note has been in the pocket of Abhishek Sharma for 6 games, glad it came out tonight,” Head told the broadcasters after the match.
Abhishek Sharma earns Preity Zinta’s respect:
Abhishek Sharma’s scintillating innings was also applauded by PBKS owner Preity Zinta, who was seen interacting with the young player and also asked him to repeat his iconic celebration after the match.
In a post after the match, Zinta wrote, “Tonight belongs to Abhishek Sharma ! What a talent & what an unbelievable knock. 👏👏Congratulations SRH ! As for us , best to forget tonight and move on as it’s early days in the tournament & such games are best forgotten. SRHvPBKS”
Abhishek Sharma reveals the secret to his performance:
Speaking after the match, Abhishek thanked his mentor Yuvraj Singh and India T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav. He said, “Special mention to Yuvraj Paaji as well because I have been talking to him as well, and I won’t deny Mr Suryakumar Yadav as well, he’s been in touch, and he was there for me, he was talking to me, he knew that this is going to happen very soon so thanks to him as well,”
“A special mention to the team and the captain (Pat Cummins) because the atmosphere we had in the team it was pretty much simple. It was, again, very simple message for all the batters, even though we were not doing that well but somehow I knew inside me that I have to do something like this to get back in the winning streak and probably I had a talk with Travis and, you know, it was a special day for both of us,” the young batter added.
