Sunrisers Hyderabad’s explosive opener Abhishek Sharma, who crossed the 4000-run landmark in the T20s, felt a massive score was “pending” from Ishan Kishan’s bat, who took the centerstage with his relentless assault on Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Ekana Stadium on Friday in the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The 17 deliveries that Abhishek faced were a treat to watch for T20 fans. He sniffed out boundary-hitting opportunities and went berserk during his short-lived outing in Lucknow. He raced to 34 before being dismissed on the 17th delivery at the hands of the crafty Lungi Ngidi.

During his short yet destructive outing, Abhishek crossed the 4,000-run landmark. On the first ball of the match, he almost chopped the ball back onto the stumps. But from that point, he never looked back. With three fours and three sixes, Abhishek set the tempo of the fixture with Travis Head going about business in his usual manner.

However, in quick succession, the southpaw duo was back in the dressing room while trying to continue with their high-risk and high-reward approach. Abhishek believes the opening pair must take responsibility and push towards the end.

“I think when we (Head and he) played the first over, we thought we got one of the best pitches this year. Somewhere, we have to look out for our small mistakes. We need to take responsibility and take it to the end. Head and I were looking forward to scoring a total of 230-240 only,” Abhishek said after the first innings.

Kishan took the mantle of taking the game deep while maintaining a healthy run rate. Throughout his unbeaten 94-run stay, he exuded his temperament, held one end, stitched the partnership with his teammates, and powered the Sunrisers to a daunting 231/6. Since blazing his way to a century in his debut for the Sunrisers, this was just his second valuable contribution with the bat in the 18th season.

“We had a plan, and we were going to go after it (throughout the innings). The score is good. I think it was pending from his (Kishan’s) side. He was talking about this. This score is because of Kishan only; the way he played was tremendous,” he added.