Follow UsWhat’s the ideal opening pair?
If you ask this question to anyone in world cricket, right now, most of them would answer ‘Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma’. The duo have become the new benchmark for openers in the shortest format, given their ultra-risk approach in the Indian Premier League.
Across the last two seasons of IPL, the opening pair have smashed 1110 runs together, with a run-rate of 12.37, the second-highest for any opening pair in T20 history (min 500 runs). The duo have also smashed four fifty-plus and four hundred-plus run partnerships in IPL, including helping SRH to set a new IPL high, smashing 287 against RCB in 2024.
So, what’s the secret sauce that sets them apart from the others? Abhishek spills the beans, stating that both are similar in nature and just want to ‘attack the bowlers’.
“Whenever I would ask Travis [Head] for a plan, he would just say one thing: ‘Just spot the fielder and hit it over their head or hit in the spaces where there’s no one’. He would say, ‘If you are not able to middle it, give me the strike’. I would think, why would I give him the strike? I want to hit too,” Abhishek told Gaurav Kapoor on an episode of ‘Breakfast with Champions’.
Abhishek also revealed how Head has his influence even on the Punjab domestic side.
“His mindset was similar to mine, and I think that’s what helped us as a batting pair. I used to enjoy watching Travis [Head], he dominates across three formats. Bowlers would be scared of him, and if you ask anyone in the Punjab team, they all want to be like Head. Then luckily, SRH picked him, and I was very happy,” he added.
The left-handed opener recalled his conversation with SRH head coach Daniel Vettori, where the latter asked him where he would like to bat.
“Dan [Vettori] asked me if I wanted to open or bat No.3, I told him, ' How can I not open with Travis Head?’. I told him, ‘I will open, please’.
It kicked-off a fruitful partnership, as SRH trailblazed their way to the IPL 2024 final, where they eventually succumbed to KKR in the final.