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New Delhi: Through his unbeaten ton in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s win over Delhi Capitals, Abhishek Sharma gave a glimpse of his destructive batting ability, which he owed to the faith reposed in his abilites from his team.

The top-ranked T20I batter blasted an unbeaten 135 off 68 balls with the help of 10 sixes and as many boundaries in SRH’s 48-run victory over Delhi at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Tuesday.

“Team coaches (Daniel Vettori) and captain (regular skipper Pat Cummins) created an environment where you can express yourself. I wanted to show my talent but you have to have backing from captain.

“The environment we had in SRH in 2024 was game-changer and it felt that they wanted youngsters to grow. Punjabi players enjoy freedom and Hyderabad team gave me that,” Abhishek said at the post match presentation.

‘Celebration aimed at Orange Army’

After reaching the triple figures, Sharma put his hand up in typical fashion, later saying it was an ode to his team’s ‘Orange Army’ while also thanking his father Rajkumar Sharma, who watched from the stands.

“One needs to pan the cameras on him (father) to catch his expressions. He always sits close to the sightscreen and whenever I look at him from the ground, he has an advice,” he joked.

Delhi won the toss and invited SRH, with Sharma saying that they had to approach their innings differently as the pitch wasn’t tailor-made for stroke-making.

“The way we started, we had a plan to use the Powerplay. It was a bit slow and we had to replan, we had match ups in our mind. Always been special moment scoring at this special ground and you don’t know par score till you play 20 overs,” he said.