Cracks emerge in Abhishek Sharma’s form as Australia test his limits before T20 World Cup

Australia may have just done what no bowling attack in Asia could manage: they made Abhishek Sharma look human. For most of 2025, India’s new left-handed destroyer has treated bowling attacks like range-hitting practice, his Asia Cup 2025 haul as the tournament’s top run-scorer at a striker rate of 200 proving as much.

Across five T20Is in Australia, though, even while finishing as the leading run-scorer of the series, the first real faultiness in his game began to show. He still scored 163 runs at a strike rate of 161.39, with a 68 off 37 balls at the MCH. Yet deeper ball-by-ball analysis and dismissal patterns tell a sharper story: Australia didn’t stop Abhishek completely, but they did leave behind a clear template for everyone else.

How Australia decoded Abhishek Sharma

Nathan Ellis was the primary codebreaker. In the series, he removed Abhishek Sharma with a mix of clever pace-off, into-the-body short balls, and occasional fast yorkers. One key dismissal at the MCG came after a sequence of back-of-the-hand slower balls and shortish change-ups. As soon as Abhishek began walking across for the whip, Ellis went full and straight and trapped him LBW. The pattern stayed similar across spells, balls dug into the pitch at the body, followed by the rapid yorker once the left-hander committed early.

Taken together, those overs reveal a clear vulnerability window. When bowlers go back-of-a-length or just short into his ribs, and take pace off, Abhishek’s hard, flat bat-swing can betray him. He likes room on both sides of the wicket and is comfortable when the bowlers are going about with a predictable pace; deny both, and his scoring options shrink.

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Spin on slower surfaces added another layer. On the Gold Coast, Adam Zampa and India’s own spinners turned a par total into a thrashing as the pitch gripped. Abhishek’s 28 off 21 never quite flowed, and his dismissal to Zampa underlined a second question: not about ability, but about gears. He still tends to hit his way out of trouble rather than absorb a few overs at a more conservative strike rate.

For opposition analysts, the Australia tour offers a ready-made playbook. Start with a seam-bowling Ellis clone: change-ups into the body, fields set for miscues, and the yorker waiting once he begins to walk across. Pair that with a wrist spinner happy to bowl into the pitch, challenging him to keep going aerial against the turn.

None of this means Abhishek has been found out; it means he has been and will be challenged. The Asia Cup showed his ceiling, while Australia have shown the rest of the world where to aim if they want to bring him down from it.

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