Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha pulled out a ‘masterstroke’ as he decided to open the bowling in the India-Pakistan match in the T20 World Cup 2026 on 15 February. He dismissed Abhishek Sharma for a duck.
Abhishek Sharma is yet to score in the T20 World Cup 2026. In India’s first game against the USA, he was dismissed for a duck as well. He did not play in the last match, against Namibia, due to injury.
Social media reacted to the dismissal of India’s destructive opening batter.
“Salman Ali Agha gets Abhishek Sharma. Out of Syllabus,” wrote one user.
“Abhishek Sharma has failed to open his account in this WC so far. Two ducks,” posted another.
One user commented, “I love Abhishek Sharma & he has brought me great joy as an SRH fan even before he played for India, but we HAVE to talk about him being a huge risk during critical matches like Ind vs Pakistan cuz there is a more than average chance of him being duck out.”
One user wrote, “Na man this Abhishek Sharma guy was fooling masses with his slogging. Now he’s getting exposed on big stage. Hope Surya has something today.”
“Abhishek Sharma just tries to force everything. There was no need. Esp in a match of this magnitude. And this branding is only detrimental to his chances of ever playing a test match,” came from another.
Another user wrote, “Abhishek Sharma is a fraud cricketer blind slogger gets caught against good teams. No batting skill, No Gaming sense, Not playing according to the situation, just blind slogging, Place in the team is due to relationship with Gautam Gambhir. Plz drop him from T20i team.”
“Abhishek Sharma made sure that India won’t miss the presence of Rohit Sharma tonight,” came from one Indian cricket fan.
Mohammad Amir on Abhishek Sharma
Ahead of the IND-PAK match on 15 February, former Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Amir earlier criticized Abhishek Sharma’s batting style. Speaking on a television show, Amir described Abhishek as a “slogger”, relying on high-risk hitting rather than strong technique.
According to Amir, Abhishek succeeds only occasionally and often scores low runs. He questioned his consistency and technical ability.
Amir suggested that bowling short deliveries at the body would be the best way to dismiss the Indian opener. He added that Abhishek should be considered a complete batsman only when he could handle swinging deliveries with confidence.
“If you ask me honestly, I feel he is just a slogger. He has to go hard at every ball. The day he gets going, it’s fine; otherwise, uske failure ke chances zyaada hain (The chances of his failure are quite high),” he said.
“He just stands there and wants all balls to be bowled in a particular area. This is my honest opinion,” he added.
At the same time, Amir admitted Abhishek could be difficult to control when he got going.
“The day he gets going, he scores big. He can hurt the other team. But, he has a high-risk game. I will consider him a proper batter only when I see that the ball is swinging even slightly and he tackles it well and smashes with the same velocity,” Amir said.
