Image Credit- AFP
Ishan Kishan has been there and not there for the past
few months. He was a member of the Indian team that advanced to the World Cup
final, although he was only able to participate in two matches—the first two
coming at the beginning of the competition, when Shubman Gill was sidelined by
dengue. Kishan was demoted to 12th man duties as soon as Gill was cleared to
play.
Kishan was determined not to miss this opportunity to
make an impact while playing for the Playing XI in the somewhat calmer
environment of Visakhapatnam. He established India’s highest ever run
chase with 58 off 39 balls, two fours and five sixes.
Kishan has spent a good amount of time batting for the
Mumbai Indians alongside Suryakumar Yadav, the Indian team’s acting captain,
and the majority of his runs came from a 112-run partnership. The friendship
was evident in how well the two of them hit with a strike rate of around 190.
The only difference between India’s alliance and the one between Josh Inglis
and Steve Smith earlier in the day was the pace at which the runs came from
both ends in their case.
Kishan’s experience didn’t begin that way, though.
Playing at No. 3, he was forced to walk to the crease as early as the first
over following a diamond duck by Ruturaj Gaikwad. Jason Behrendorff was bowling
to him; Kishan had been dismissed five times since 2021 from left-arm fast
bowlers, and his strike-rate of 98 against the type didn’t help either.
Kishan made four runs on Thursday off of the eleven
balls that Behrendorff threw at him. six of them arrived in a maiden over.
Additionally, he got stopped on 4 off 12 balls at one point. The result went
against Suryakumar’s advice to bat with risk rather than regret.
With two fours and five sixes against his record and a
strike rate of 149, how did Kishan end the evening?
Favorable pairing. Tanveer Sangha bowled him 10
deliveries, but he scored 30 runs off of them. And it was already too late when
he misplayed a googly off the eleventh delivery by the bowler.
“I had a chat with Surya bhai that I’m going to
take [on] this guy [Sangha] wherever he bowls because we need to get the runs
and balls close,” Kishan explained. “Being a lefty batter and a
legspinner bowling [I had to take a chance]. I knew how the wicket was because
I kept for 20 overs. So it [the counterattack] was very much needed. When
you’re chasing a total like 209, you need to take [on] a bowler, you need to
target bowlers whom you can hit.
“You can’t give too many runs to the backend
batter, it won’t be easy for them to straightaway come and play those big
shots. So I had to take my chances and I believed in myself. What I have done
in my practice sessions was very much at play here when I had to go in for a
big shot.”
Kishan reveals a bit more about what went into the
making of that planned batting assault against Tanveer Sangha. “This goes
back a little, when we were playing the World Cup and I was not playing those
matches. So in the practice sessions, I asked myself what is important for me
right now, what I could do and I practiced a lot in the nets. I was talking to
my coaches about everything, about the game, how to take the game deep, how to
target those bowlers,” the 25-year-old added.
Kishan took full advantage of the opportunity
following the twin devastation of not only losing the World Cup but also not
playing for the majority of it. It was evident to all that in addition to his
versatility as a batsman, he possesses the cunning and sense of game needed to
overcome slow starts and turn the day around.