During the 45th match of the 11th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Delhi Daredevils (DD) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at Delhi, Delhi Daredevils’ Abhishek Sharma, who made his IPL debut tonight, ended up playing an awe-inspiring innings to boost his team’s total.
After Virat Kohli won the toss and put the home team in to bat, Delhi Daredevils were put on the back foot right from the first over. Yuzvendra Chahal per se dismissed the openers cheaply. However, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant stitched a 93-run partnership to bring their team back into the match.
Abhishek Sharma came in to bat at No. 6 in the 16th over when Shreyas Iyer got out to Mohammad Siraj. On the first ball that Sharma faced, he played an on-the-up shot through the long-off region for a four. It was surprising for everyone to see a 17-year old Sharma get off the mark in such a way.
But that was all. In the following over, Sharma hit a four and couple of sixes off Tim Southee to further make an impression in his first outing. Scoring 22 runs off a Southee over was in itself a big thing for someone as young as Sharma. On the second delivery of the next over, Sharma ramped a Siraj delivery for a six over third-man.
In the last over of the innings against the same bowler, Sharma hit another six and four to take his team to 181-4 in 20 overs. He ended up scoring 46* (19) with the help of three fours and four sixes.
Watch how Twitterati reacted on Sharma’s impressive debut:
Abhishek Sharma's 46* off 19 is the highest score by a 17-year old in IPL.
He missed becoming the youngest to score a IPL fifty.
Looks like another special talent! #DDvRCB
— Bharath Seervi (@SeerviBharath) May 12, 2018
Debutant Abhishek Sharma helped #DD post a massive total of 181/4! 🔥
Do the hosts have enough runs on the board? #DDvRCB #BESTvsBEST
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 12, 2018
#DD, did you really keep this kid—Abhishek Sharma out for so long??? Looks special…. #DDvRCB #IPL
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) May 12, 2018
Seems like Delhi were waiting for Abhishek Sharma's board exams to get over before letting him play #DDvRCB
— Sriram Ramesh (@Sriram_Ramesh94) May 12, 2018
https://twitter.com/ViratsFangirl18/status/995334721633566720
https://twitter.com/moulitalks/status/995334370331262976
https://twitter.com/ThatCricketBuff/status/995334462886920194
Delhi crowd has had the deal of the day.They bought tickets to watch Rishabh's splendid batting and they weren't disappointed by him, but much to their pleasant surprise, they witnessed the rise of another star Abhishek Sharma.#RishabhPant, #AbhishekSharma, #DDvRCB
— Manish Rao (@immanishrao) May 12, 2018
What a Straight drive by Abhishek Sharma!!!!! #DDvRCB And he is just 17 yrs old
— HARSH (@HarshBihari1) May 12, 2018
Watch the highlights of his innings:
https://twitter.com/videos_shots/status/995340556438880256
