Who is Ashok Sharma? Rajasthan’s breakout pacer leading SMAT 2025-26 wickets with consistent, impactful performances.
A young boy from Rampura in Rajasthan once dreamed of becoming one of India’s leading pacers. But reality can be unforgiving, and for Ashok Sharma, it nearly brought his cricketing journey to an end when he decided to quit the sport in 2021.
Yet destiny had other plans. A stroke of luck brought him back, and sheer determination carried him forward. Within a year, he earned his IPL cap, and by 2025, he had transformed into the most feared seamer of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2025–26, topping the wicket charts and storming into the IPL 2026 auction spotlight with authority.
In his maiden SMAT season, Ashok has led Rajasthan’s attack with a maturity that belies his experience, finishing the league phase as the tournament’s highest wicket-taker with 19 wickets in seven matches. He has done this at an average of 12.10 and an economy rate of 8.84, operating largely in high-scoring conditions where bowlers have often been reduced to damage-control roles.
Rajasthan’s surge to six wins in seven group games has been built around his ability to take wickets in clusters, allowing them to attack with fields and keep opposition batting line-ups constantly under pressure. For a side not traditionally known as a domestic powerhouse in T20s, a 23-year-old pacer becoming the central pillar of their white-ball revival is a significant structural shift.
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Outstanding spells that changed games
Ashok’s season has not been about “quietly good” consistency but about big, statement spells that swing games. He has already recorded two four-wicket hauls and two three-wicket hauls in this SMAT. These bursts have typically come when batters were looking to accelerate, showing his value as a phase-neutral bowler who can operate in the powerplay, middle overs and at the death.
Ashok’s rise is rooted in a rugged, rural cricketing journey. A farmer’s son from Rampura in Rajasthan, he often trained with borrowed gear and travelled long distances just to get adequate practice, making his current ascent anything but entitled.
However, the purple patch that the young man is witnessing wouldn’t have happened had he given up cricket in 2021 in pursuit of a BA degree and a government job. When he failed to make the step up from Rajasthan’s Under-19s to their Under-23s for consecutive seasons, Ashok decided that he needed to support his family’s farming business.
Later, he discovered the talent hunt program Red Bull Speedster and decided to give it a go. His real break came through the Red Bull Speedster trials, jointly organised with Rajasthan Royals, where his raw pace and smooth run-up impressed coaches and earned him a stint as RR’s net bowler in 2021.
From there, the pathway opened: academy stints in Jaipur, selection for U-23 Rest of India, exposure to high-performance camps and eventually a Ranji debut, where he picked 14 wickets in four games at 29.71 in his first red-ball season. These first-class numbers are solid rather than spectacular, but they framed him as a work-in-progress pacer whose ceiling lay in white-ball cricket, something his current SMAT surge emphatically confirms.
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IPL stints with KKR and RR
Franchise cricket spotted him early, even if it took time for the public to notice. Kolkata Knight Riders picked him up for INR 55 lakh at the IPL 2022 mega auction after a trial where his pace and run-up drew strong reviews from scouts. He did not play a single game that season, but rubbed shoulders with Tim Southee, Pat Cummins and Umesh Yadav, learning nuances about rhythm, fields and execution that he later put to use in the Rajasthan Premier League and domestic cricket.
Rajasthan Royals had already used him as a net bowler around that period and, convinced by his growth, brought him “home” at the IPL 2025 auction at a base price of INR 30 lakh. Again, he did not break into the XI in a packed attack, and was eventually released after a poor team campaign.
Pace, heavy lengths and evolving death skills
Technically, Ashok offers a modern T20 fast-bowling package that is hard for teams to ignore. Multiple reports and coaches confirm he regularly operates in the 140–145 kmph range, having even touched 149 kmph in an U-23 Rest of India game. The description that recurs most often is “heavy ball”: he hits the deck hard, extracts steep bounce and makes even length deliveries feel awkward for batters trying to line him up.
He is not a pure swing-only bowler; rather, he combines a decent new-ball shape with hard, back-of-length bowling and an increasingly reliable yorker, something he himself has stressed as a focus area in recent months.
Most of his SMAT wickets have come while bowling hard lengths, but a handful of key dismissals have arrived through yorkers at the death, suggesting an understanding of phase-specific plans rather than a one-dimensional approach.
Beyond pace, what stands out is his temperament. Having nearly given up the game due to lack of opportunities before that one “audition” changed everything, he now operates with visible hunger and a point to prove.
There is still roughness: his economy, even at 8.84 in SMAT, suggests that he is an attacking option who will occasionally go for runs in chasing wickets. In IPL terms, that makes him a “match-up” and role-specific quick rather than an automatic four-overs-every-game banker, at least initially. But for teams that value strike power, that risk-reward equation is increasingly acceptable.
Perfect timing before IPL 2026 auction
In the current market, his timing could not be better. With the IPL 2026 mini-auction days away, Ashok sits as SMAT’s leading wicket-taker, consistently bowling at high pace and delivering impact spells against top domestic line-ups. He has already had trials with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and with a base price of INR 30 lakh, he represents relatively low-cost, high-upside India pace inventory for any franchise thin on local fast-bowling options.
