Abhishek Sharma Sanctioned Brutally By BCCI

Abhishek Sharma Penalized By BCCI. Image Credits: AFP

Young Indian opener Abhishek Sharma has been punished by BCCI for his act in KKR vs SRH IPL 2026 match. The game that took place at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata, was won by Abhishek's SRH but the opener has now been punished.

KKR took on SRH in their 2nd games each of IPL 2026. Both sides had been coming off on the back of defeats in their opening IPL fixtures. While KKR had lost to Mumbai Indians away from home, SRH also lost to RCB away from home.

SRH take the explosive route

Having won the toss, KKR skipper, Ajinkya Rahane, invited SRH to bat first. SRH openers, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, took the team off to a flying start in the powerplay. Although Abhishek looked a bit scratchy initially, Travis Head smoked all KKR bowlers from ball 1.

However, all it took Abhishek Sharma was the one Varun Chakaravarthy over in the powerplay to roar back to form and he did so. The young Indian opener smashed Varun for 25 runs when he came in to bowl the 5th over of the innings, smashing 2 sixes and 3 fours.

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Travis Head and Abhishek provided the initial onslaught with SRH hammering 84 runs in the powerplay for the loss of just 1 wicket when Travis Head departed against Kartik Tyagi.

Ishan Kishan and Abhishek carried the attack to the opposition,  scoring quickly. However, then came the Blessing Muzarabani over that changed the course of the SRH innings.

The Zimbabwe pacer came in to bowl the 9th over of the innings and on the 2nd ball of the over he got Ishan Kishan caught out at deep point, thanks to a wonderful catch by Rinku Singh on the ropes.

Abhishek Sharma's catch by Varun Chakaravarthy that got everyone talking

Then came the delivery that became the biggest talking point of the KKR vs SRH game. On the 4th ball of the over, Abhishek Sharma swiped a hip-length delivery to deep square leg where Varun Chakaravarthy ended up taking, arguably the greatest catch of his cricketing career.

Sprinting quickly diving forward, Varun plucked the ball out of thin air to complete the catch. However, since the ball was dipping on him and was barely inches away from the ground when he caught it, the on-field umpires referred it to the 3rd umpire, Nitin Menon.

Nitin Menon took multiple angles to judge whether it was a fair catch or not. The front camera angle showed that the ball had bounced off the ground just before landing in Varun Chakaravarthy's palms.

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However, from the side angles, the picture painted a different story. From the side angles, Varun's hands were clearly behind the ball and giving the benefit of the doubt to the bowler, Nitin Menon adjudged Abhishek Sharma out.

The catch was so sensational that Abhishek remained unmoved for a good 5-10 seconds and when he was given out by the 3rd umpire, he still couldn't believe it and showed his dissent towards the on-field umpires.

BCCI hits Abhishek Sharma with a fine

After the incident, there was a widespread debate on social media around whether or not the umpire did the right thing. Even, former Indian legend, Ravichandran Ashwin voiced his opinion on the matter.

He sided with umpire Nitin Menon on the issue and made it clear that the 3rd umpires have specific guidelines for adjudging the fairness of a catch and the approach he took by believing on the side-on angles was the correct approach for Abhishek Sharma's catch.

Ashwin 🇮🇳

@ashwinravi99

I like SRH as a team and i picked them as favourites to win this contest too. I still believe Nitin Menon got it right. Right or wrong cannot change based on the team we support. The umpires are trained to pick camera angles in a certain way and they know what angle gives them

However, the entire episode didn't sit well with the BCCI legislators. Abhishek's argument and dissent on field was charged as a Level 1 offence under Article 2.3 of the BCCI Code of Conduct in IPL. 

Accordingly, Abhishek Sharma was fined 25% of his match fee and was handed 1 demerit point for his behaviour. The SRH opener accepted the offence. Abhishek will however, have to be careful going forward, as 4 demerit points in a 3-year cycle could lead to his ban from IPL matches.

SRH thump KKR in their own backyard

Although Abhishek's penalty comes off as a sour memoir for SRH from the game, the side will be happy as they registered their 1st win of IPL 2026, beating KKR comfortably by 65 runs. Angkrish Raghuvanshi was the lone KKR batter to have showed some resistance.

Apart from him, all KKR batters fell cheaply, chasing a steep target of 227 runs. For his all-round contribution, Nitish Kumar Reddy was given the man of the match award. With this win, SRH have jumped to the 6th spot in the IPL 2026 Points Table. 

Meanwhile, KKR are having a disastrous start to their IPL 2026 campaign, having lost both the opening games. Plagued with injuries, if the tide doesn't turn quickly, KKR might be staring down at another disappointing season which doesn't reflect good on the 3-time IPL champions.

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