 "'Travishek' back with a bang: Abhishek Sharma's career-defining knock against PBKS revives SRH's floundering campaign")
Both Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) had been going through a freefall of sorts after starting their 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign on a winning note, enduring a losing spree in subsequent fixtures. Things would then go from bad to worse for CSK after the five-time champions suffered a humiliating eight-wicket loss against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at home on Friday – the day MS Dhoni returned to captaincy for the first time in two years.
SRH, however, would revive their campaign in some stunning fashion the very next day, also in a home game, chasing down a mammoth 246-run target set by Punjab Kings to register the second-highest successful chase in IPL history.
The Sunrisers’ performance with the bat had undergone a rapid decline since they posted 286/6 – the second-highest total in IPL history – in their opening game of the season against Rajasthan Royals. For a brief moment, it appeared as if the spark that had powered them to the final of the 17th edition last year vanished in thin air.
In the evening fixture of the Saturday double-header, their batting unit delivered the kind of power-packed performance that was at the heart of their remarkable 2024 campaign. And playing a central role in that victory were the two standout performers from last season – opening batters Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAbhishek overcomes early jitters to smash 40-ball ton
Australian opener Head has had his moments this season, having smashed 67 off just 31 balls against RR on 23 March followed by a knock of 47 off 28 deliveries against Lucknow Super Giants in their subsequent outing.
Abhishek, on the other hand, had scored just 51 runs in the first five games of the season; while he was off to a promising start against the Royals with a knock of 24 off 11 deliveries, he could barely score a rate higher than 100 in the next four games. And this was less than two months after he smashed 135 off 54 balls in the fifth T20I against England at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.
The 24-year-old southpaw from Punjab, however, shook off the rust in the nick of time to deliver a power-packed performance for the Sunrisers in front of their home crowd at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. And in the process, the famed ‘Travishek’ pair – which hadn’t posted a 50-plus partnership this season before Saturday – was back with a bang, forging a mammoth 171-run stand that ended up reducing a Herculean chase to a cakewalk.
𝘼 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚-𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙮 𝙏𝙊𝙉 💯
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 12, 2025
A stunning maiden #TATAIPL century from Abhishek Sharma keeps #SRH on 🔝 in this chase 💪
Updates ▶ https://t.co/RTe7RlXDRq#TATAIPL | #SRHvPBKS | @SunRisers pic.twitter.com/ANgdm1n86w
And it comes at a time when a fifth defeat in six matches could have virtually ended their hopes of reaching the playoffs – a prospect that CSK currently face with Mumbai Indians close on their heels.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Abhishek though, and he had his fair share of luck early on after skipper Shreyas Iyer blasted a 36-ball 82 to help PBKS post 245/6 – what appeared to be a match-winning total at the time.
He had collected a flurry of boundaries off Marco Jansen in the second over but not all of them were well-connected, with the ball brushing Marcus Stoinis’ fingertips at extra cover off an attempted slap in the third delivery.
At the start of the third over, Abhishek nearly got run-out after getting into a mix-up with Head, and would have been run-out by a country mile had Glenn Maxwell effected a direct hit. And in the fourth, he hit the ball straight to deep point to perish for 28 – only for the umpire to raise his arm due to PBKS pacer Yash Thakur having overstepped in the delivery.
“He was a bit lucky as well, even though he played an exceptional knock which was out of this world, to be honest,” Iyer said after the post-match presentation, acknowledging the element of luck in Abhishek’s breathtaking knock.
Explained | What Abhishek Sharma’s celebration was all about after slamming 40-ball ton vs PBKS
What matters in the end, though, is how a batter capitalises on such an opportunity. Sachin Tendulkar too had been dropped on 32 by Abdul Razzaq in the 2003 World Cup match against Pakistan in Centurion. He would go on to smash another 66 runs against a legendary Pakistani attack in what is considered one of the most defining knocks of his career.
It is highly unlikely that Abhishek’s whirlwind innings – in which he smashed 14 fours and 10 sixes before getting dismissed off Arshdeep Singh’s bowling – will ever be compared with Tendulkar’s iconic knock. Or with Steve Waugh’s tournament-defining 120 in the Super Six match against South Africa in the 1999 World Cup in which the then-Australia skipper was famously dropped by Herschelle Gibbs.
Abhishek, however, did smash several records with his blazing innings, from bringing up his maiden IPL century in just 40 balls – the fifth-fastest in the league’s history – to posting the highest individual score by an Indian in the league as well as the highest in a run chase.
And because of that, he has already carved a niche for himself in the IPL even if his international career is still at a nascent stage.
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