The Indian Premier League 2026 playoffs are underway and Sunrisers Hyderabad opener Abhishek Sharma’s woes of low scores at such a crucial stage of the league continue.
The 25-year-old batter, who rose to prominence in Indian cricket through SRH’s continuous faith in his talent and skills since his move from Delhi Capitals in 2019, has produced many match-winning and explosive knocks for his side but has failed to deliver when it has mattered the most.
An extraordinary 484-run season in IPL 2024 saw him break out within the SRH setup and become an integral part of the playing XI. However, that season he also had low scores of 3, 12, and 2 in the Q1 and Q2 and final. SRH lost to KKR in the final.
History repeated itself once again, and it is not a stat to be proud of, as Abhishek was enjoying one of his highest-scoring IPL campaigns with 563 runs in the ongoing 2026 edition, but in an important Eliminator he registered a duck against Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday. He eventually witnessed his side being knocked out of the league after failing to chase a mammoth 244-run target at the New Chandigarh Stadium. SRH fell short by 47 runs.
The manner in which the defeat came and the reckless approach used by SRH top order batters Abhishek, Travis Head, and Ishan Kishan on the day, giving away wickets against an in-form RR pacer Jofra Archer, drew criticisms from many fans and pundits regarding their match awareness and inability to step up in crunch situations.
Former Indian captain Kris Srikkanth particularly slammed Abhishek for his repetitive failures on big occasions, highlighting similarities with his miserable ending to the 2024 campaign and calling it a cause for concern for SRH, who are still chasing their first title since their win in 2016.
“Abhishek Sharma has always failed in the playoffs. He has been a huge failure in the playoffs. That’s been SRH’s problem since 2024. Archer finished SRH in the powerplay despite Ishan Kishan’s blinder,” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
Everybody messed up!
While Abhishek failed to deliver again, the fault does not entirely lie with him. Srikkanth slammed the entire SRH batting unit. “If Travis Head played sensibly and Kishan did not get out at that time, they would have had an outside chance. But the way SRH just blindly slogged, do they think it’s so easy to score runs? I was surprised that SRH didn’t even put up a fight. Even [Heinrich] Klaasen played a pathetic shot and seemed to have waited for Archer to finish his spell before coming to bat,” Srikkanth added.
