After Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan has emerged as another power-hitter in the IPL. He gave a spellbinding performance with a 58-ball 99. His excellent batting performance in partnership with Kieron Pollard brought the team back in the game. The defeat was almost staring at Mumbai Indians at one point of time but their superb batting performance equalled RCB’s score of 201, pushing the match into the Super Over. Despite that Mumbai Indians could not win the match for some other reasons. Ishan also missed his century by one run. But he proved to be a future star with his splendid innings. What made his innings so special was the fact that he performed like this facing star bowlers of international level like Adam Zampa, Yuzvendra Chahal and Navdeep Saini.
In fact, as the IPL is moving forward, India continues to get so many power-hitters. It is clear that India’s future is bright in T-20. Several contenders have come up together who can fill up the vacuum created after the retirement of wicketkeeperbatsman M.S. Dhoni, and this is a good indication for the team as well. Now, if Rishabh Pant does not perform well, then there are other contenders to replace him. At the same time, however, the team management will have to shun the obsession of attaching too much importance to Rishabh Pant.
Ishan played the high-level bowlers such as Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa and Yuzvendra Chahal easily and comfortably. He has a skill to accelerate run rate comfortably. He was considered to be a rival of Rishabh Pant in the last few years but his claim was always rejected as he was far behind Pant in terms of strike rate. But in this innings, by scoring at strike rate of 170, he demonstrated that he has developed himself as a power-hitter. From now on, he needs to focus more on his game. He is still inferior to Pant and Sanju in terms of playing shots all around the wicket. Most of his favourite shots were on the leg side against RCB. Though he has been seen cutting the ball on earlier occasions, his favourite area was midwicket in this inning.
In fact, Ishan Kishan’s name emerged at the national level when he played in Under-19 World Cup in 2016 and when he hit double century three years ago against Delhi in Ranji Trophy. It was the highest score (273) of any Jharkhand player in Ranji Trophy. He had displayed immense potential by making centuries in two consecutive matches in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, but that time he was ignored on the ground that his centuries came against J&K and Manipur which were considered to be weak teams. But he finally silenced his critics by playing an innings of 71 runs not out on behalf of India A against New Zealand A in a match at Christchurch during New Zealand tour.
His strike rate is 132.52 in 77 T-20 matches at the national level. The strike rate was a bit over 100 before this match of IPL. Obviously, he needs to improve in that direction and he has started off with his explosive innings against RCB. In fact, he was the highest scorer on behalf of Jharkhand in Vijay Hazare Tournament. If Dhoni’s successor comes from his own state, then it will be another feather in Jharkhand’s cap.