Abhishek Sharma’s three consecutive ducks at the 2026 T20 World Cup should not be a matter of concern for India.
You can hardly blame anyone for reacting. Abhishek Sharma is not only the highest-ranked batter in men’s T20Is but his rating of 931 (on September 10, 2025) is the highest ever achieved in the history of the format. There have been moments in his career when his career strike rate flirted with 200 – a scarcely believable mark even at the turn of the decade.
Naturally, expectations were high when he took strike for the first time at the 2026 T20 World Cup, the biggest stage of international cricket. They raised an eyebrow at the first duck. Took note at the second. And now, after the third, they sound concerned. The voices are now no longer confined to whispers.
Part of the concerns come from the colossal expectations not being met. The rest, almost certainly from replicating the definition of failures in the longer formats in T20 cricket. In Test cricket (and often in ODIs), a top-order batter is said to have failed when they go through a string of low scores: but should that definition apply in T20s?
A matter of definitions
It is important to understand how top-order batting in Tests and ODIs differ from T20. In Tests, the primary job is to protect the wicket and score runs. Despite the many evolutions of the format, the batters often get some buffer in ODIs. In T20 cricket, teams almost always run out of balls quicker than wickets.
Since most top-grade T20 batters take risks significantly earlier than in their innings, it is not unusual for them to have strings of low scores. It was always on the cards that Abhishek, the batter with the highest strike rate in the history of T20Is (and generally, all T20 cricket), would have such runs – which he indeed does have.
On T20I debut, he swung the fourth ball he faced and was caught in the deep for a duck. He smashed a hundred in his next innings, but followed that with 10, 14, 16, 15, 4, 7, 4 (across three series) – in other words, eight of his first nine innings amounted to 70 runs.
India were not concerned, largely because of three reasons. One, he had already demonstrated his class in the IPL. Two, a string of low scores did not prevent him from taking risks early in the innings. And three, there was a hundred in the mix. Naturally, they backed him: he was not failing – because low scores are not necessarily failures in the format.
Over his next seven innings, Abhishek hit 365 runs at a strike rate of 215. After his first four series (Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, South Africa, England) he had 535 runs at a strike rate of 194. The average had jumped from 18.89 to 33.43. He began the 2025 IPL with 24, 6, 1, 2, 18, but (almost predictably) followed that with a 55-ball 141, the highest score of the edition.
Read more: More dead rubbers, lopsided groups: Why the T20 World Cup's Super Eights pre-seedings are unfair
You get the gist. For Abhishek Sharma and his ilk, such strings of single-digit scores are inevitable. If backed through them, he will follow them with innings few are able to replicate. A very high career strike rate (near-impossibly high, as in Abhishek’s case) is unachievable without a high-risk approach.
Of course, it would have been a matter of concern had Abhishek not been taking risks – in other words, not assumed his allocated role in the XI. High-risk batting comes at a cost: you are not in control of your strokes as often as some slower batters.
Almost every entry in the above chart is on expected lines. It is obvious how much of an outlier Abhishek is. The five Indians on this chart all have higher control percentages and, hence, are nowhere near in terms of strike rate.
Abhishek’s breezy starts, when they come off, enable the others to take their time. It works out in the long run: in 2025, he scored 28 per cent of all men’s T20I runs scored off the bat by the Indians.
Also read: Going hard at hard lengths: How Abhishek Sharma unlocked a different dimension in the England T20Is
But there is also a chance of him trying and failing. The Indian team management knows this. “We can’t rely on Abhishek all the time: the way he’s been batting, he might have an off day,” Suryakumar Yadav had said after the second T20I against South Africa earlier this season.
India are willing to provide him that buffer: they have padded their batting to No.8, choosing at most one of Arshdeep Singh and Kuldeep Yadav, both of whom would have coexisted in any other national XI. They have no reason to change that plan.
“I don’t think plans change based on whether a player has failed or not,” assured batting coach Sitanshu Kotak ahead of the Netherlands game. “T20 format is high-risk, someone will get out: if we stress so much on it, players will be under pressure. He [Abhishek] is in good form, he has got clear plans, has a clear mindset and that’s what matters to us.”
Postscript
Such strings are not unusual in the careers of great cricketers. Suryakumar Yadav had a stake at being arguably the greatest T20I batter in the pre-Abhishek era. He had a forgettable 2025.
Chris Gayle’s mountains of big, rapid scores hid a string of 4, 5, 4, 1, 0, 7, 5, 6 in 2016: the first three of these came in the T20 World Cup (the second in the semi-final and the third in the final).
In ODIs, where batters need not take risks early on, Sachin Tendulkar had a streak of 0, 0, 0, 8 in 1994. Even Don Bradman, the epitome of batting consistency, was dismissed thrice in four balls during the 1936/37 Ashes.
Each of these phases were discussed and dissected, only to be buried as the batters returned to form.
