Abhishek Sharma breaks Virat Kohli's T20I record during victory against Pakistan in Asia Cup 2025

subhradeep-choudhury — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:20:10 GMT

Abhishek Sharma breaks Virat Kohli's T20I record.

India’s young and sensational opening batter, Abhishek Sharma, overtook their former captain and one of the best batters, Virat Kohli, in a T20I record during their seven-wicket victory with 25 balls to spare against Pakistan on September 14 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The southpaw was excellent with the bat, offering them a strong start in the 128-run chase.

The southpaw jumped out of his crease to nail Shaheen Afridi for a four on the very first ball of the second innings before nailing him over the covers for a six. He picked up the length and pace of the bowler beautifully to smash him for another six over the mid-wicket region. Even against the spinners, Abhishek Sharma was equally brilliant to club 31 runs in 13 balls, thanks to four boundaries and two sixes.

In this process, Abhishek overtook the most powerplay runs by an individual batter against Pakistan in the T20Is. The previous record was held by Virat Kohli at the same venue three years ago when he drilled 29 runs in 24 balls in the 2022 season’s run chase.

Abhishek Sharma holds new record of most T20I powerplay runs for India vs Pakistan

Kohli is followed by the former captain of the Blue Brigade, Rohit Sharma, and the other veteran opener, KL Rahul. They also scored 28 runs in the powerplay overs of the same contest. Abhishek has now nailed 596 runs in 18 innings of his T20I career at a strike rate of 195.41 with two fifties and two centuries.

Earlier in the evening, Pakistan’s captain, Salman Ali Agha, won the toss and decided to bat first, expecting the surface to get hard for batting in the second innings. But they never looked settled in the middle and kept losing wickets regularly. It was Shaheen Afridi’s knock that pushed them to 125+ in the first innings.

After the victory, India didn’t shake hands with the opposition as the captain, Suryakumar Yadav, dedicated the victory to the Armed Forces. In protest of it, PCB didn’t send their captain to the post-match presentation ceremony.