Playing for Punjab against Bengal in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match in Hyderabad on Sunday, Abhishek Sharma hammered a 12-ball half-century. In men’s T20 cricket, it is the second-fastest fifty by an Indian and the third-fastest fifty overall.
Abhishek destroyed a bowling assault led by Mohammed Shami and Akash Deep by opening the batting with Prabhsimran Singh and scoring well over 15 runs per over against them, Saksham Choudhary, and Writtick Chatterjee. In the 12 balls he faced to reach his fifty, Abhishek gave up just one dot ball and struck five fours and five sixes.
Dipendra Singh Airee of Nepal got the fastest fifty in men’s Twenty20 cricket against Mongolia in September 2023 at the Hangzhou Asian Games. Due to his 11-ball fifty for Railways against Arunachal Pradesh in the 2023–24 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Ashutosh Sharma of India is ranked number two on the list.
In the format, Abhishek is currently the fifth batter to reach a fifty off of twelve balls.
The first was Yuvraj Singh, who hit six sixes in an over against Stuart Broad during his batting against England in the 2007 T20 World Cup. Chris Gayle accomplished it in January 2016 while playing for the Melbourne Renegades against the Adelaide Strikers in the BBL. Then, in an Afghanistan Premier League match in Sharjah in October 2018, Hazratullah Zazai of Afghanistan matched it while playing for Kabul Zwanan versus Balkh Legends, which included Gayle.
The most recent example was when Sahil Chauhan of Estonia reached that point against Cyprus in an international match in Episkopi while en route to an undefeated 41-ball 144.
India
