Follow UsIn what has been a poor season for Sunrisers Hyderabad, their star opener Abhishek Sharma has been the biggest shining light. The left-handed opener continued his blazing touch in IPL 2025, with a 20-ball 59 against Lucknow Super Giants, on May 19 (Tuesday), taking his run tally to 373 runs.
In particular, he was effective in negating LSG’s spin threat, taking on Ravi Bishnoi for 26 runs in a single over, after which he never bowled in the clash. But ultimately, he succumbed to Digesh Rathi, after having given SRH the perfect start. SRH’s head coach Daniel Vettori praised the youngster, stating that he’s a big challenge to any team when in such form.
“Today was probably our best batting performance as well. The way that Abhishek understood the situation, what was required on these bigger grounds. He was able to set it up and then everyone who came in just read the conditions perfectly, understood their role and got us home comfortably, so that’s very satisfying. I mean, it was a fantastic innings,” Vettori said.
"He [Abhishek] has been incredible and the big challenge for any team is when he gets through the early stages of his innings and plays spin. Once again tonight, he was exceptional against the spinners and his strike rate is out of this world. So, we know that whenever the opportunity presents itself, he normally takes it on and is very successful," Vettori added.
SRH did not have their match winner Travis Head, who was still recovering from COVID-19, and is expected to take the field soon.
“We’ve got a few days off before our game in Bangalore, so it’s all tracking that he’ll be fine to play that game,” he said of Head.
But in Head’s absence, SRH gave a franchise debut to Atharva Taide, who hit 13 off nine balls before getting out to Will O’Rourke.
“It is also equally important in finding about a few players and giving them opportunities. Today, got a chance today with Travis Head being unwell and then continuing to see some performance from Eshan Malinga and Kaminda Mendis, so I think that’s very pleasing,” he added.
Despite the positive result, SRH are still in the bottom half of the IPL 2025 table, with nine points from 12 games.