Ashutosh Sharma came in for Punjab Kings as an impact-sub against Gujarat Titans in the IPL 2024 season as it chased a target of 200 runs in the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
His crucial knock of 31 runs in 17 balls in the dying embers of the match helped PBKS edge past GT and secured its second win of the season.
The youngster came in to bat in the 16th over and put down a crucial partnership of 43 runs in just 22 balls and helped the Kings close down the big target.
With three fours and a six, Ashutosh set the tone for his teammates to finish the game off in style.
Ashutosh caught the headlines before when he broke Yuvraj Singh’s record of the fastest fifty by an Indian in T20s. The Ratlam-born and Indore-raised Ashutosh hammered his fifty off just 11 balls against Arunachal Pradesh in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Group C clash in October 2023. And with that, he surpassed Yuvraj’s 16-year-old record of striking a fifty off just 12 balls, set against England in the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.
Ashutosh was just nine years old when Yuvraj hit six sixes in an over off Stuart Broad in Durban to set a new record but remembered watching that iconic game on television in a chat with Sportstar on the sidelines of the tournament then.
In the 2019 edition of SMAT, Ashutosh scored 58 against Mizoram, followed by a 60 against Meghalaya and an 84 against Puducherry for Railways.
As a kid growing up in Ratlam, Ashutosh admired local boy Naman Ojha, who went on to play for India, and helped Ashutosh in his journey.
“As a kid, I would watch Naman bhai play a lot, and that’s how I fell in love with the sport. I made my T20 debut for MP under Naman bhai’s captaincy, and I owe him a lot for all the support,” Ashutosh said.
Punjab Kings is now 5th in the league with two wins in four matches in IPL 2024.
