Abhishek Sharma is one T20 World Cup final away from completing the same journey Virat Kohli completed in 2024

This tournament has been a rollercoaster for India. Players have come in and out of form, the batting order has shuffled more than once and the bowling attack has had its brilliant days and its difficult ones. Sanju Samson could not buy a run early on and then suddenly became the most important batter in the side. Varun Chakaravarthy looked like the best spinner in the world for the first three weeks and then Jacob Bethell walked out at the Wankhede and made him look very ordinary very quickly. It has been that kind of tournament for India. Messy in places, brilliant in others, held together by the kind of team belief that gets you through when individual performances are not always there.

And then there is Abhishek Sharma. Who has just been bad throughout.

While everyone else moved up and down Abhishek Sharma stayed in the same place. At the bottom. From the first game to the semi-final there was no purple patch, no moment where it clicked, no innings that made you think the corner had been turned. Just a flat, consistent run of low scores and early dismissals that a tournament average of 12.71 describes more honestly than anything else.

What makes it interesting though is that someone else looked exactly like this not so long ago. Virat Kohli in 2024 had the same kind of tournament. Not the kind of bad form that goes up and down and keeps you guessing. The kind that just sits there. Flat. Stubborn. Going nowhere.

Both started the same painful way in group stage

Abhishek Sharma began 2026 with three ducks in his first three games. Against the USA he did not score. Against Pakistan he did not score. Against the Netherlands Abhishek Sharma did not score. Three games, three zeros, three early walks back to the dressing room before Abhishek Sharma had faced enough balls to even get comfortable.

Kohli in 2024 started with a 1 against the Ireland Then 4 against Pakistan. Then duck against Ireland. His average at the end of the group stage was in single figures and people who had watched him bat for twenty years were genuinely asking whether he still had it in this format. Not quietly either.

Two completely different players, two completely different tournaments, the same story running through both of them from the very first game.

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One good knock each and then nine runs in the semi-final

Both found one innings that kept the argument alive before the knockouts. A 24 against Afghanistan suggested something might be coming for Kohli but then 37 against Bangladesh was the best he managed before the knockouts. Against the Australia he again went on duck. The Bangladesh knock was the one score that stood above the rest and it was just about enough to stop the loudest voices from getting any louder.

Abhishek Sharma then managed 15 against South Africa and 10 against West Indies and in between he scored a 55 off 30 against Zimbabwe gave everyone a brief moment of hope. By that point though the questions about his place in the team were already very loud and getting louder. The Zimbabwe innings was the one good score in an otherwise difficult run and like Kohli’s 37 it felt more like breathing space than a real return to form.

Both going into the semi-finals with one decent knock propping up everything else. Both still carrying the weak link label. Both hoping the knockout stages would bring something different.

They did not. Not in the semi-final anyway.

In 2024 Kohli was dismissed for nine off nine balls in the semi-final against England. Bowled by Reece Topley. Walking back with a number that felt like the whole tournament squeezed into one digit. On Wednesday night at the Wankhede in 2026 Abhishek Sharma was dismissed for nine off seven balls against the same England. Caught off Will Jacks. Walking back with the exact same feeling and the exact same score.

Nine runs. Same opponent. Same stage. Two years apart. That’s not really a coincidence anymore.

Kohli answered it in Barbados. Can Ahmedabad save Abhishek Sharma?

Rohit Sharma said before the 2024 final that they were saving Virat for the big occasion. At the time it sounded like a captain looking after a player who needed some cover. It turned out to be the truest thing anyone said about that tournament.

Kohli walked out in Barbados against South Africa and scored 76 off 59 balls. Six fours, two sixes, an innings that did not look like much in the first few overs and then slowly became the reason India won. Not his most aggressive batting. Not a hundred. Just exactly what was needed at exactly the right time from a player who had spent four weeks being told he didn’t have it anymore. India won. Kohli retired from T20 cricket that same night. The nine from the semi-final was forgotten by morning. The 76 in the final was the only number anyone kept.

Abhishek Sharma will walk into the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday with those same nine runs sitting behind him. Three ducks in the group stage. One half century against Zimbabwe. Single digit scores scattered throughout. And now a World Cup final at the biggest ground in the country against a New Zealand side that will come after him from ball one.

The numbers are the same. The story so far is the same. The stage is the same. Kohli had Barbados and made it count in the most complete way possible. Abhishek Sharma has Ahmedabad. Sunday is where we find out if the ending is the same too.

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