Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
On a day when T20 superstars such as Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head failed to fire, Sunrisers Hyderabad found an unlikely hero in young Aniket Verma, in their IPL 2026 opener against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
The 24-year-old lad from Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, blasted 43 off 18 balls to take SRH to a promising 201/9 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The day belonged to wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan, who top scored with a 38-ball 80 (five sixes and eight fours) to power Hyderabad to a challenging score even as wickets kept falling around him. With Sharma (7), Head (11) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1) back in the hut in the powerplay, falling to pacer Jacob Duffy (3/22), SRH were in trouble.
But Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen (31 off 22 balls) steadied the ship with a 97-run partnership off 53 balls. But, after Klaasen fell to a controversial catch on the boundary, and Salil Arora departed for 9, the SRH were in danger of falling short of a competitive score.
But, Verma came out all guns blazing, stroking four sixes and three fours to take the visitors past 200.
Known for his power-hitting as a middle-order batter, Verma announced his arrival in the Madhya Pradesh League in 2024, turning up for Bhopal Leopards. He scored 273 runs in six matches at strike rate of just under 200. The highlight of his stint was a 41-ball 123 with 13 sixes.
In an under-23 one-day tournament later that year, he scored 184 runs in seven matches at an average of 45 and at a strike rate of over 150, including a whirlwind 75-ball 101 with eight sixes, for Madhya Pradesh against Karnataka.
He debuted in senior cricket with a match in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for MP against Hyderabad but was dismissed for a golden duck.
Interestingly, Verma had not played a single international match when he was picked by the SRH in the IPL 2025 mega auction for his base price of Rs 30 lakh. He made 235 runs that season at a strike rate of 166. He caught everyone's attention with a 41-ball 74 and a 13-ball 36.
He seems to have carried on from where he left off last season.