Fast & Furious

Rajkumar Sharma was visiting an under-14 camp in Mohali when Arun Bedi, its coach and former Punjab player, pulled him aside and predicted that two of his 30 wards would go on to play for India. One was Shubman Gill, the other his son Abhishek.

- -Kathakali Chanda

Abhishek Sharma (25)

Cricketer

“I asked him how he could possibly foresee their future when they were just kids,” says Sharma, himself a former first-class player. That’s when DP Azad, the director of the academy and Kapil Dev’s legendary mentor, stepped in. “Azad saab told me he wasn’t being facetious,” says Sharma, “and that he knew for sure that these two boys were exceptional.”

The two stalwarts of Punjab cricket couldn’t have been more prescient. Now the India captain in Tests and ODIs, Gill’s rise needs no retelling. And Abhishek, who was a bit late off the starting block, has now made the T20 format his own. In 2025, he became ICC’s No 1 ranked batter in the format, with the highest-ever ranking points earned by a cricketer.

But the 859 T20I runs he has scored in the year—and 1602 overall, the second-highest by an Indian batter in the format in a calendar year after Virat Kohli’s 1614 in 2016—is only part of the story. The other is how he scores them.