Former Indian skipper Kris Srikkanth slammed Abhishek Sharma after the SRH opener was dismissed without troubling the scorers against Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator contest of the ongoing IPL 2026 on Wednesday.

Chasing 244 runs for the win, SRH had to take the aggressive batting route. However, they were dealt with an early blow as Abhishek Sharma could only manage an edge to wicket-keeper Dhruv Jurel when trying to play the hook shot against Jofra Archer.

Sharma has scored 17 runs in four IPL playoff matches at an average of 4.25.

Srikkanth said on his YouTube Channel, “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 powerplay despite Ishan Kishan’s blinder.”

The 1983 World Cup-winning player also questioned SRH’s decision to demote in-form Heinrich Klaasen to number five.

“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.”

The former Indian skipper slammed SRH’s batting, highlighted that their batters were blindly slogging every ball.

“If Travis Head played sensibly and Kishan did not get out at that time , they would have had an outside chance. But the way SRH just blindly slog, do they think it’s so easy to just score runs? I was surprised that SRH didn’t even put up a fight. Even Klaasen played a pathetic shot and seemed to have waited for Archer to finish his spell before coming to bat,” said Srikkanth (via the aforementioned source).

“Its injustice though how horrible Travis Head swung the bat. I used to swing the bat blindly in my time, but I’ve not seen someone slog blindly like Head. It was clear that Head was intimidated by Archer.”

SRH was knocked out of IPL 2026 after this huge loss.