Abhishek Sharma's Record 30-Ball T20 Century in Delhi
On a warm night in Delhi, Abhishek Sharma didn’t just open for India. He tore the game apart.
The left-hander blasted a 30-ball century in the third T20 against Afghanistan, the fastest hundred ever in a T20 international between two full-member nations. By the time he finally walked off, he had 108 from 34 deliveries to his name, India had 221-7 on the board, and Afghanistan hadn’t yet faced a ball.
The carnage started early and never really stopped. Abhishek, in a mood that bowlers dread and spectators remember, treated length and line as mere suggestions. He hammered nine fours and 11 sixes, turning the powerplay into a highlight reel and the middle overs into a demolition job.
He reached his hundred in the ninth over. Nine overs. At that point India were 132-0, and the innings felt less like a platform and more like a statement. Of his first 100 runs, 96 came in boundaries. The only interruptions to the onslaught were a single in the previous over, a two in the third, and the gentle nudge that took him to three figures.
The numbers barely capture the violence. Balls disappeared over long-on, sliced over point, dragged over midwicket. Afghanistan shuffled their options; nothing stuck. Fazalhaq Farooqi went searching for yorkers, spinners tried to drag the pace off, angles changed, fields scattered. The bat kept swinging.
At the other end, Sanju Samson played the perfect foil. His 50 from 35 balls looked brisk in isolation, yet almost sedate beside the chaos at the top. While Abhishek cleared the ropes, Samson fed the strike, picked off gaps, and made sure the run-rate never dipped.
Afghanistan’s one bright spot with the ball came through Azmatullah Omarzai, who found some control amid the storm to return 2-27. On a night when the ball flew to every corner, those figures glowed with respectability.
India still lost wickets in clusters once Abhishek departed, the innings inevitably cooling after the blaze at the start. But the damage had been done long before the final over. A total of 221-7 in 20 overs, built on one of the most brutal hundreds the format has seen, left only one question hanging over the Kotla.
How do Afghanistan even begin to chase that down?
