After half-centuries from Abhishek Sharma and Aiden Markram had taken SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) past 160 in 18 overs in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 match against Gujarat Titans, they needed a final flourish to get to a big score. In walked Shashank Singh for his maiden innings in the IPL 2022. And what happened after that is a stuff of legends. In just six balls he scored 25 runs, including three sixes off Lockie Ferguson's last over.
Courtesy Singh's brutal assault, that saw him finish with a strike-rate of 416.67, SRH finished on 195/6 in 20 overs. The effort was lauded by all including former India players.
"The beauty of @IPL is that we get to know about young players who come in and perform brilliantly. It's commendable the way Shashank stepped up and took Lockie Ferguson for a toss in the last over along with Marco Jansen!" Harbhajan Singh, former Indian cricket team player, wrote on social media.
All-rounder Singh represents Chhattisgarh in domestic cricket and has played nine First-class games. He has also represented Mumbai and Puducherry. In the nine FC games that he played, he has scored 436 runs with one century and three half centuries. In the IPL, he has been part of the Rajasthan Royals setup earlier. He was bought by SRH for his base price of INR 20 Lakh in the IPL 2022 auction.
His brilliant display started a meme fest on Twitter. "#Gt ShashankSingh ko dekh kar flower samje kya #ShashankSingn flower nahi fire hai," wrote a Twitter user with reference to the super-hit movie Pushpa, starring Allu Arjun.
Some had the RRR, another super-hit movie starring Jr. NTR and Ram Charan, references too.
And, with Pushpa and RRR featuring, how could KGF-2 be left behind?
That was not all as fans came up pretty innovative memes.
However, his heroics and those of Umran Malik, who picked up his maiden five-wicket haul in the IPL, went in vain as Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan smashed four sixes in the final over to take GT over the line.