Abhishek Sharma had 56 runs in two games, and his 35-ball hundred in Wellington has India 3-0 up in New Zealand
India chased 199 in 13.2 overs on the back of a record 118-run powerplay, and the five-match T20I series is won with two games left.
Oct 27, 2026
Abhishek Sharma had 56 runs from India’s first two T20Is in New Zealand. On Tuesday night in Wellington he made 113 off 38 balls, India chased 199 in 13.2 overs, and the five-match series was settled with two games still to play.
India won the third T20I by six wickets with 40 balls to spare. That makes it 3-0. The two last-over chases in Christchurch had made the series look tighter than it is, and Wellington put that right in under 14 overs. Abhishek reached fifty in 15 balls and his hundred in 35, finishing with nine fours and 11 sixes before Glenn Phillips caught him off Kyle Jamieson in the tenth over.
A 26-run first over set the tone
Jacob Duffy’s opening over went for 26, with a no-ball, a bouncer that was wided for height and beat the keeper to the boundary, and a six over point from each opener. No Full Member side had taken more from the first over of a men’s T20I. Australia’s 24 against West Indies in 2010 was the old mark.
It did not let up. India had 50 inside 2.2 overs, 100 by the end of the fifth and 118 for no loss at the end of the powerplay. That is the highest powerplay total in men’s T20Is, beating Romania’s 116 against Serbia in 2021. They reached 150 in 7.4 overs, which nobody had done faster in any men’s T20 match.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, back at the top of the order, hit the first ball of the chase for four and made 45 off 19 with four sixes. He and Abhishek put on 133 before Daryl Mitchell caught him off Matthew Fisher in the eighth over. The required rate had been 9.95 when the chase began. By the end of the sixth over it was 5.78.
“I feel I pretty much manifested this innings and it happened,” Abhishek said at the presentation. He credited the side-arm sessions with India’s coaches and said watching from the field had told him how to bat on a ground with long straight boundaries and short square ones. The plan was to use the pace in the powerplay and hit square.
Abhishek passes Kohli
This was Abhishek’s 11th hundred in all T20 cricket, one more than Virat Kohli and now the most by an Indian batter. Only Chris Gayle (22) and Babar Azam (13) have more. It was his fourth in T20Is, which puts him level with Suryakumar Yadav and one behind Rohit Sharma. Three of those four T20I hundreds have come in fewer than 40 balls.
There was a small wobble at the finish. Shreyas Iyer went for 5 and Sanju Samson was bowled by Jamieson for 18 with India one hit from home. Naman Dhir hit his first ball for four to finish it.
Mitchell’s 89 was not enough
New Zealand had looked set for more than 198. Finn Allen and Mitchell hit eight sixes between them as the hosts reached 88 for 1 after eight overs, with India’s seamers still bowling the shorter lengths that had worked at Hagley Oval. Nitish Kumar Reddy changed that. He bowled full and straight, and Allen holed out for 40 off 25 trying to clear a straight boundary of more than 80 metres.
The rest of the attack followed Reddy’s lead and found a bit of reverse swing. Mitchell got to fifty in 26 balls and then added only 35 off his next 26, finishing on 89 not out off 52. Bevon Jacobs made 39 not out in an unbroken stand of 75. Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel and Reddy took a wicket each, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar went wicketless for 40.
The fourth T20I is in Auckland on Friday, October 30, starting at 12:30pm IST, and the series finishes in Hamilton on November 1. Five ODIs and two Tests follow.