Kevin Pietersen described Abhishek Sharma’s 135 runs against England in the fifth T20I at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as, “the best T20I innings I have ever seen,” and he took time to tell the Indian opener after the match. The former English captain called it the ‘perfection’ innings, with ‘no funky shots’ involved.
The 135 (54) is now India’s highest score in T20Is, with the record of 13 sixes. He took only 37 balls for his ton, making him the second-fastest to reach the T20I century in the clash between the full-member ICC nations after Rohit Sharma and David Miller (both 35 balls). His 50 came in 17 balls, the second-fastest for India after his mentor, Yuvraj Singh’s 12-ball blitz against the same opponent in 2007.
“Abhishek rocks! Obviously, Yuvraj’s shades are now rubbing off on Abhishek. His batting was unbelievable. It was the best-ever T20 international innings, and I told him after that,” Pietersen said on Tuesday, according to PTI. “It was out of this world. It was sheer strokeplay. There were none of these sort of funky shots, ramp shots, sweeps, or reverse sweeps. It was just sheer perfection,” he added.
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Over the last five years, Yuvraj has virtually been the guiding force behind Abhishek Sharma in refining his fitness and mentality during the trying times of the pandemic. Afterwards, technical nuances and game-intelligence-related things have been carried out through phone conversations and meetings.
After his brilliant knock, he said he knew he’d play a knock like this, even in his lull phase, for the belief instilled in him through his team’s backing.
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You could ask any player; such matches are really scarce. I, for some reason, believe that all of this happened because of the amount of effort I put in at practice and the encouragement I got from my coaches and captain when I was not getting the runs or bowling well,” he said at the post-match press conference. All these things come together at the end, and I had faith that I would play an innings like this someday.
