Former India captain Kris Srikkanth has slammed the performance of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) opener Abhishek Sharma in power plays this IPL 2026 season. His words came after SRH was defeated by Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Eliminator game on May 27.

Abhishek was dismissed by Jofra Archer in the first over for a two-ball duck. Overall, Abhishek scored 563 runs in 15 games for SRH in IPL 2026 at a strike rate of 204.72 with one century and four fifties.

However, his failure to give SRH a good start in the IPL 2026 Eliminator game against RR has led to Srikkanth dubbing him a failure in power plays.

"Abhishek Sharma has always failed in the playoffs. He has been a huge failure in the playoffs. That's been SRH's problem since 2024. Archer finished SRH in the power play despite Ishan Kishan's blinder," said Srikkanth in a video on his YouTube channel.

Archer was devastating for RR, removing the dangerous SRH top three- Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, and Ishan Kishan, as SRH could only make 196 in the chase of a 244-run target.

Srikkanth also criticized the team's batting order, as Ravichandran Smaran was sent in at no.4 instead of Heinrich Klaasen. Smaran was dismissed for one run by Nandra Burger.

"Travis Head is just blindly slogging. I am not sure why they sent Smaran ahead of Klassen. Was Klaasen not willing to play Archer, or did SRH want to send Klaasen after Archer's opening spell finished? It was unclear what their strategy was. They got to 50 in the third over itself, but once Kishan fell, it was a disastrous slide," Srikkanth concluded.

With the win over SRH, RR set up a Qualifier 2 clash with the Gujarat Titans.