Abhishek Sharma reached his hundred in 30 balls, and the two men above him play for Estonia and Turkey
Abhishek Sharma took 30 balls to a T20I hundred against Afghanistan in Delhi on Thursday, five fewer than Rohit Sharma’s nine-year-old India record and three fewer than the mark Finn Allen set at the World Cup.
Sep 17, 2026
Afghanistan won the toss at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday evening and asked India to bat. Thirty balls later, Abhishek Sharma had a hundred.
The number matters more than the usual milestone noise. Rohit Sharma’s 35-ball century against Sri Lanka at Indore in December 2017 had stood as India’s fastest in T20Is for close to nine years, and nobody had come especially close to it. Abhishek has beaten it by five deliveries, in a dead rubber, on a September night in Delhi with the series already won.
Sixteen balls to fifty, fourteen more to a hundred
The shape of the innings explains the number. Abhishek reached fifty in 16 balls, which is quick but not unheard of. The second fifty took 14. By the time he got to three figures he had hit nine fours and ten sixes, and the Afghanistan attack had turned into a queue of men waiting their turn to be hit.
Sanju Samson watched most of it from the other end. The openers were still together at the end of the eighth over with 124 on the board, Samson on 31 from 20 balls, Abhishek on 93 from 28.
Abhishek eventually fell for 108 from 34 balls, caught behind by Rahmanullah Gurbaz off Rashid Khan, with 11 sixes to his name by then. A strike rate of 317.65 is what happens when a batter treats good deliveries as an inconvenience rather than a problem.
Finn Allen held this record for four months
Two men have reached a T20I hundred quicker. Sahil Chauhan got there in 27 balls for Estonia against Cyprus in June 2024, and Muhammad Fahad needed 29 for Turkey against Bulgaria. Both came in associate cricket, against attacks several levels below the one Afghanistan put out in Delhi.
The mark that actually fell on Thursday belonged to Finn Allen, who took 33 balls against South Africa in the T20 World Cup semi-final at Eden Gardens earlier this year, the quickest hundred there had been between two full-member sides. Sikandar Raza and Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton had also got to 33, against Gambia and Nepal respectively. Abhishek has knocked three balls off the lot of them.
He sat down to celebrate it
There was no bat raised at the dressing room and no run towards the boundary. Abhishek took off his helmet, put the bat down and sat cross-legged on the pitch in padmasana, fingers in a chin mudra, while a full house in Delhi stood up. Gautam Gambhir watched from near the dugout and allowed himself a smile.
It was the third T20I hundred of his career, and the one that arrived with the least riding on it. India had already taken the series with two wins, both by seven wickets, and the third game was set up as a look at squad depth rather than a contest.
India’s opening slot is no longer a question
The awkward part for everyone else in the batting group is that nights like this have stopped being a surprise. Abhishek has been picked to bat this way since his debut in 2024, and he has kept producing it against progressively better bowling. One innings does not settle a World Cup place, but it does make the argument about who opens for India in T20 cricket considerably shorter.
Afghanistan will feel hard done by. Rashid Khan got him in the end, which is more than most bowlers have managed this year, and their attack has survived better starts than the one it ran into here. On the night none of that helped. One batter decided the first eight overs belonged to him, and nobody found an answer inside them.