Virat Kohli took 15 years to score nine T20 centuries. Abhishek Sharma just matched him at 25.
The SRH opener’s unbeaten 135 off 68 balls against Delhi Capitals on Monday — 10 sixes, 10 fours, a century reached in just 47 deliveries — wasn’t another big IPL score. It was the fifth-highest individual innings in IPL history. His second sub-50-ball IPL century. No other Indian has managed even one — though Tilak Varma’s 101* off 45 balls for Mumbai Indians came close just days earlier.
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Axar won the toss on his milestone night at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and chose to bowl. By the time Abhishek was done, SRH had posted 242/2 — and Delhi’s celebration had turned into a reckoning.
DC’s chase started well enough. At 107/1, the match was alive. Coming off a confidence-boosting win where DC had just beaten RCB at the Chinnaswamy, this felt possible. Then Eshan Malinga ripped through the middle order with four wickets, Delhi crumbled to 195/9, and a 47-run loss buried a night their captain was supposed to own.
But the scoreline doesn’t explain why this innings matters more than the last one.
Same Venue, Different Century
Abhishek’s first IPL century came at this exact ground last April — 141 off 42 balls against Punjab Kings, the highest individual score by an Indian in IPL history. That was a breakout nobody saw coming.
This time, every attack in the league knew what to expect. They still couldn’t stop it.
He’s now the world’s top-ranked T20I batter. He crossed 2,000 IPL runs for SRH during this knock. And he’s done something Kohli never did — reach two IPL centuries in under 50 balls each. After the match, Abhishek dedicated the innings to his sister.
SRH’s third consecutive win pushed them to third on the points table, with only unbeaten Punjab Kings and a couple of games in hand separating them from the top.
Kohli built his nine T20 centuries across a decade and a half of controlled, surgical accumulation — including Kohli’s 69* in the IPL 2026 opener against SRH that showed he’s far from done. Abhishek matched that number with a style Kohli never played: detonation. Two IPL hundreds, both under 50 balls, both at Hyderabad, both against attacks that knew exactly what was coming.
The record is shared. The trajectory isn’t.