New Delhi, May 29 : Abhishek Sharma has been one of the highlights of the 2024 IPL season. It was his exploits with opening partner Travis Head that made SRH the highest-scoring team in the season.

The young all-rounder smashed 42 sixes through the course of the tournament which saw him top the chart for most sixes in a tournament followed by Heinrich Klassen and Virat Kohli ties at 38. The opening batsman amassed 484 runs at a blistering strike rate of 204.22 through the course of the tournament.

In an exclusive conversation with IANS, Abhishek Sharma's father Rajkumar Sharma shared what he told his son after the final.

'I told him it's okay to win and lose is a part of the game but your journey in the IPL was great,' Rajkumar Sharma told IANS. 'The team was not able to perform in the final and even they were shocked by what had happened but even they believed that had Abhishek performed then they could have won the game. I met Pat Cummins and Travis Head and they heaped praises of Abhishek and told me that he is a great player and he is a core member of the team and whenever he performs we win.'

Despite an extraordinary batting display throughout the tournament, Sharma's batting like all others in his team faltered in the finals. It was an extraordinary ball by Mitchell Starc which bowled Sharma on just the fifth ball of the first innings and sent him to the pavilion at just two runs.

He made history by being the first batsman to amass more than 400 runs in an innings without even having to face 30 balls in a single inning. The most deliveries he has faced, 28, came against the Lucknow Super Giants, where he chased down a 166-run mark in 9.4 overs while remaining undefeated at 75.

Sunrisers Hyderabad got bundled out for 113 runs in their bid to win the second IPL trophy in franchise history, KKR faced no challenges in chasing the total down as they finished the game in just 63 deliveries making it one of the most one-sided finals in the history of the tournament.

'After the IPL final, I told him not to worry as every player has his day and that day was not for the team. The batting flopped on the day as their team heavily relied on their openers and on the day both opener did not get the start. No player was able to get off to the start. The highest-scoring team in the league went flop on the day. I don't know what happened and they were not able to perform well. The game was so low-scoring that they could not have fought for the win,' he added.

/IANS