‘This innings will be remembered for a long, long time’

Ashutosh Sharma’s stupendous innings to drag the Delhi Capitals to victory against the Lucknow Super Giants earned him instant praise from legends of the game like Sunil Gavaskar, Michael Clarke and Faf du Plessis, who is also his teammate at DC.
Ashutosh slammed an unbeaten 66 off just 31 balls to take DC home with one wicket left, after being called in at a critical stage as an Impact Sub with the team reeling at 65/5 in the seventh over. At that stage, the required rate was almost touching 10 in a chase of 210. But after scoring 20 off the first 20 balls he faced, he exploded hitting 46 runs off the next 11 balls.
Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar heaped praise on Ashutosh after the game.
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“This innings will be remembered for a long, long time—not just because of the quality of stroke play, but because of the high-pressure situation,” Gavaskar said on JioHotstar after the Delhi Capitals versus Lucknow Super Giants game at Visakhapatnam on Monday evening. “We saw him (Ashutosh) do that last year as well—he played some terrific innings, and his confidence has only grown since. Once you’ve done it before, you enter the next season with even greater self-belief. He’s also played another season of domestic cricket, where he has been smashing the ball around and scoring plenty of runs, so he came in full of confidence. From the very first ball, he was striking it cleanly from the middle of the bat, sending it deep—these weren’t just occasional sixes clearing the boundary, they were landing in the stands, again and again.”
Gavaskar added: “That was a fabulous finish (from Delhi Capitals)! This is exactly what we’ve come to expect from the IPL, yet we always crave more. These last-over thrillers, these breath-taking finishes.”