Abhishek Sharma Did Not “Flop Again” In SMAT: A Ground Reality Check

New Delhi, November 28: The noise around Abhishek Sharma over the last two days has followed a familiar pattern: a stray comment online, a couple of speculative posts, and suddenly there is talk that he has “flopped again for Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy”. The certainty with which some users declared it almost made it sound like there had been a dramatic collapse somewhere. But when you go looking for the supposed failure, there is nothing to find. Not a scorecard, not a match report, not even a passing mention in domestic coverage.

What you do find instead is a fairly routine beginning to Punjab’s SMAT season. One match. A straightforward chase. A controlled win. And one notable detail that somehow got drowned in the rumour machine: Abhishek did not so much as face a ball.

A Rumour With No Match Attached To It

Punjab’s first outing of the 2025–26 SMAT came against Himachal Pradesh, and it was the kind of match that barely stirs debate. Himachal made 147 for 8. Punjab knocked it off with time to spare. The top order did its job. There was no crisis that would force Abhishek down the order or keep him waiting in the dugout. That is exactly what happened. The batters ahead of him completed the chase before his turn arrived.

He bowled a couple of overs. Went for 21. Nothing spectacular, nothing worrying. And that was his day. If you look at the scorecard with a journalist’s eye, it is hard to see where the word “flop” fits. You cannot fail with the bat when you never get to bat.

But the claim still surfaced, floated around, and picked up some traction among those who follow domestic cricket casually but loudly.

What The Coverage Actually Says

The next step in checking any cricket rumour is simple. You look at what the established reporting has to say. Domestic cricket may not always get the spotlight, but early-tournament coverage still picks up the notable performances and the notable failures.

So far, Abhishek Sharma does not appear in either category.

A roundup from the first phase of matches, published on November 27, reads like most early SMAT reports. It highlights a young Gujarat batter’s rapid hundred, points out a few impressive bowling spells, and takes a brief tour through the opening day’s energy. Nowhere in that summary is there a single line about Punjab’s top order stuttering, or Abhishek scratching around for runs, or a short-ball issue resurfacing. His name does not appear because he was not part of the narrative yet.

In domestic cricket, a failure by an India international rarely slips through unnoticed. Reporters cover these moments because readers want to know how the national squad’s fringe players are performing. Silence, in that sense, becomes its own form of confirmation. If someone with Abhishek’s profile had fallen cheaply, we would have heard about it.

Still, the rumour went ahead anyway.

Working Through The Numbers, Slowly And Honestly

One of the easiest ways to verify how a batter has begun a tournament is to check the early statistical tables. These are usually updated quickly. You glance at the list of leading run scorers, the players with big knocks, even the basic dismissal logs.

Abhishek’s name is absent because he simply has not entered the batting ledger yet. That is not failure. It is a delay.

There is a difference between a player struggling for runs and a player not having the opportunity to score them. The rumour blurred this distinction entirely. It treated absence as evidence, which is a common leap in sporting discourse but has no place in fact-checking.

The stat charts make the situation clear enough. Punjab have played only one match. Abhishek has not batted. That should end the conversation. Yet it needed a closer look because of how quickly misinformation can take hold when it concerns someone who is already in the public spotlight.

A Player Coming Off A Strong Pile Of Runs

The idea that Abhishek is “failing again” becomes even stranger when you look at the larger backdrop of his last twelve months. This is not a batter in crisis or a youngster fighting to keep his place. He is in the middle of the strongest T20 phase of his career.

Across 2025, he collected 705 T20I runs, the highest tally by any Indian batter in a single calendar year. He overtook seasoned openers like Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma in that metric. Performances like that are not shrugged off by domestic attacks in the SMAT. When a player like him gets out early, it is news. When he does it repeatedly, it becomes a storyline.

And if there is one thing domestic cricket reporters never ignore, it is a storyline involving a freshly successful India international.

The absence of such a story here says a great deal.

Where The Rumour Probably Took Root

There is a common pattern in domestic cricket chatter, especially on fast-moving platforms. A player is listed in the XI. The team wins. But his name does not show up among the run scorers. To someone not looking at the match closely, that can look like failure. It only takes one confident message to turn a non-appearance into a supposed flop.

And because Abhishek has a reputation for explosive batting, any game where he does not feature can feel like a letdown to those who expect fireworks every time. It is an expectation that shadows many young players who perform well internationally. They become symbols of momentum. When they do not appear, people assume something went wrong.

But nothing went wrong here. He was simply not needed on the day.

That subtlety rarely survives on social media.

Why The Truth Still Matters

Fact-checking a rumour about one SMAT match, especially one in late November, may seem minor. But misinformation around domestic cricket tends to snowball. It shapes perception unfairly and sometimes even influences how casual fans think about selection debates.

Abhishek is not just another domestic cricketer. He is one of the highest-performing T20 batters India has at the moment. His form is a matter of national discussion. When a story begins claiming he has slipped or failed, it deserves scrutiny.

The facts do not support the claim. And because the facts are so clear, the rumour fades quickly once examined properly.

The Ground Reality, Without The Static

After going through the scorecards, the reporting, and the available tournament data, the picture is straightforward:

• Punjab have played one match so far
• Abhishek Sharma did not bat
• No domestic outlet has reported a poor performance by him
• No scorecard shows a dismissal or a low score
• His name does not appear in any narrative of struggle or form concerns
• He continues to be one of India’s top T20 performers this year

There is no collapse to record and no recurring pattern of failure. It is fiction dressed up as fact.

What Comes Next

Punjab will have more matches in the coming week, and Abhishek will eventually walk out to bat. When he does, the record will reflect whatever happens, whether that is a brisk 40, a quiet 12, or a rare failure. But none of that has happened yet.

For now, the only responsible position is to stick to what the evidence shows. And the evidence shows nothing resembling a flop.

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Prakash Nair

Senior Sports Journalist – Prakash@hindustanherald.in – Web

Sports reporter covering cricket, football, and Olympic disciplines, with on-ground event experience.

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