Abhishek Sharma is arguably the finest T20I batter in the world right now. The ICC rankings agree too, as the southpaw is at the top of the list at the moment, that too by a big margin. Also, Abhishek's batting strike-rate and average are destructive, and he is also the fastest to record 1000 runs in the format in terms of balls faced.
However, Abhishek hasn't begun T20 World Cup 2026 on the right note. He recorded a golden duck in the tournament opener against USA and was then out due to fever for the Namibia game. Now, in the big game against Pakistan, Abhishek has again departed for a duck in the first over of the India innings.
Abhishek becomes the first batter in the top-10 ICC batting rankings to register ducks in the opening two games of T20 World Cups. He is only the third player overall to achieve this unwanted record after Ashish Nehra and Imrul Kayes. We can ignore Nehra as he was a tailender during the best of his days. Kayes also was an underachiever for Bangladesh and rarely dominated the game at all.
In such a scenario, Abhishek's ducks will sting him and the Indian camp. Arguably, he is the biggest trump card in the batting department and the Punjab batter now has four ducks in his last six innings. Three of those ducks were golden ducks, and while there were scores of 68*(20) and 30(16) in between, India will hope for a lot more consistency from Abhishek, especially in a World Cup.
It is, however, too hard to be over-critical of Abhishek's form, given the high-risk game that he plays. The fact that he has managed unreal consistency with such an approach is historic in itself. But, teams tend to develop methods for batters across a period of time and Abhishek needs to up his game as well. Given his eagerness to learn, the 25-year-old should bounce back sooner than later.