Twitter Reactions: Abhishek Sharma’s maiden T20I ton sees India post humongous total against Zimbabwe

Abhishek Sharma. (Source – BCCI)

Team India took on Zimbabwe in the second T20I at the Harare Sports Club, in Harare, on (Saturday) July 7. The visitors won the toss and opted to bat first. The visitors made a significant change in their playing XI as Sai Sudharsan debuted at the expense of Khaleel Ahmed as India entered with an extra batter. Shubman Gill was dismissed in the second over scoring just two runs. Abhishek Sharma was joined by Ruturaj Gaikwad in the middle and the duo started to build the partnership.

Both Abhishek and Gaikwad stitched a 137-run stand for the second wicket and the former was on song as he scored his maiden international ton. The southpaw smashed seven boundaries and eight sixes at a strike rate of 212.77 before ending his knock on 100 off 47 balls. Rinku Singh joined Gaikwad in the middle after being promoted up the order and he took some time to settle at the start.

India come all guns blazing in Harare

The duo then took the Zimbabwean bowler to the cleaners smashing them all over the park. Credit to some misfielding and dropped chances, the batters shared 87 runs between them for the third wicket. Gaikwad scored a sublime 77 off 47 and Rinku pitched in with 48 off 22 as both remained unbeaten and India posted a huge total of 234 for 2 on the board in the second T20I of the series.

“It was pretty much tough, the first 15 balls I played, I didn’t even middle a single ball. Wicket was slightly tough, me and Abhishek talked that we should take our time and then go for our shots and it worked. He took on the spinners really well, we talked about maintaining our shape while playing our shots, the wicket was slightly two-paced, some balls were skidding and some were holding up. I think we need to stick to hard lengths, stick to good lengths, just Test match lengths, keep it simple and try to hit top of off,” said Gaikwad at the end of the first innings.

Here’s how ‘X’ users reacted to India’s innings: