Debutant Abhishek Sharma had a forgettable start to his International career. The new Indian opening batter has been dismissed for a duck during the team's first T20I of the five-match series against Zimbabwe on Saturday.
As confirmed by new captain Shubman Gill on the eve of the opening game in Harare, Abhishek came out to bat alongside Gill during the run-chase at the Harare Sports Club. But his stay was cut short as off-spinner Brian Bennett sent the dangerous SRH opener back for a four-ball duck.
Abhishek has now joined an elite list of Indian players who were dismissed on a duck on T20I debut. Before the left-handed explosive batter, former skipper MS Dhoni, Prithvi Shaw and KL Rahul bagged ducks in their T20I debut.
Indians with ducks on T20I debut:
MS Dhoni in IND vs SA in 2006
KL Rahul in IND vs ZIM in 2016
Prithvi Shaw in IND vs SL in 2021
Abhishek Sharma in IND vs ZIM in 2024
Abhishek Sharma was handed his maiden India T20I cap alongside Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel as India look to build a team after the era of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja. There were other players in line of debut as well. Tushar Deshpande and Harshit Rana are uncapped Indians, while Sai Sudharsan has played only ODIs.
India's new T20I captain Shubman Gill confirmed the debutants during the toss. "We will field first. I think it looks like a good surface. It won't change much later. It has been long coming. We won an ICC event after 11 years. You always have some expectations from yourself. We have three debutants. Sharma, Jurel and Parag make their debuts," Gill said at the toss.
Abhishek came on the back of a stellar performance in IPL 2024. He had the second-most runs for his franchise in the tournament with 484 runs behind him in 16 matches. Abhishek struck these runs at 204.21, easily the highest for anyone above him and 18 players below him in the run-scoring sheet.
Abhishek also struck 42 sixes in the season, the most. The left-handed batter also shattered the record of most sixes hit by an Indian in a single IPL season, a record which belonged to Virat Kohli, who smashed 38 sixes in 2016 and 2024.
India were asked to chase 116 after Ravi Bishnoi's four-wicket haul restricted the hosts to 115 in Harare.
