Cricket - Indian Premier League - IPL - Sunrisers Hyderabad v Punjab Kings - Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad, India - April 12, 2025 Sunrisers Hyderabad's Abhishek Sharma holds up a note for the fans after reaching his century REUTERS/Abhijit Addya
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Abhishek Sharma has a habit of scribbling something every morning and it appeared the Sunrisers Hyderabad opener wrote his own script on Saturday when he blasted 141 off 55 balls to end his team's losing streak in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The 2016 champions had been languishing at the bottom of the 10-team league after a winless start to the season and risked a fifth consecutive defeat when Punjab Kings posted a commanding 245-6 on a batting-friendly track in Hyderabad.
Abhishek and his Australian opening partner Travis Head plunderd 171 runs in 12 overs, however, to set up Hyderabad's eight-wicket victory accomplishing a huge chase with nine balls to spare.
Abhishek raced to a 40-ball hundred before pulling out a handwritten note meant for Hyderabad fans that read, "This one is for the Orange Army."
Afterwards, Abhishek, the player of the match, said, "I wrote it today itself because I usually wake up and write something.
"I got a random thought that if I do something today, that would be for Orange Army.
"Luckily, today I felt it was my day."
It surely was as Abhishek was dropped twice during his blistering knock, studded with 10 sixes and 14 fours, which helped Hyderabad pull off the second-biggest chase in IPL history.
The highest score by an Indian in the IPL was not about mindless slogging though, as Abhishek tweaked his approach and shuffled across to exploit the short boundary on the leg side whenever Punjab bowled to him with a packed off.
"If you've seen me close enough, I never play anything behind the wicket, but I was still trying few shots because they had a pretty good plan for us outside off," he said.
"So, I wanted to just invent few shots which I think was very easy on this pitch because of the (even) bounce and the (boundary) size on one side."
Hyderabad moved up to eighth and face a struggling Mumbai Indians in their next match on Thursday.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
