Second chances don’t come by easily in Indian cricket. Not when one is sent to the back of the conveyor belt of talent that is the Indian cricket pool. Even if he happens to have an ODI double hundred, that too the fastest in history. Earning a shot at redemption by dint of domestic performance is a high-stakes punt these days. But Ishan Kishan took it anyway, grinding it out the only way he knew and was told. Then with Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma’s dismissals in three balls on Friday came another chance, this one of a lifetime. And now Kishan might not have to look back again.
Dissect him any way you want, Kishan is already a double format monster, only it wasn’t impressed upon us consistently. He was partly to blame, having made himself unavailable for India for the better part of 2024. That decision didn’t sit well with the selectors. Kishan lost out on a central contract, prompting Rahul Dravid to ask him to go back to scoring heavily in domestic cricket and force the selectors’ hands. He did exactly that.
The maiden IPL hundred—off just 45 balls—for Sunrisers Hyderabad last year made for a compelling opening argument. And then when Kishan extended that form into the Ranji Trophy and Jharkhand’s maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy win — he scored 517 runs at a strike rate of 197.32 with two hundreds — the selectors had no option but to pick him for the T20 World Cup.
Making the cut from where he was stagnating is already more than an achievement for Kishan. Friday, however, showed there is no better antidote for Kishan than runs. Runs not just from the quantitative perspective, but also at a rate so dizzying that it put to shade a spectacular 82 off 37 balls by Suryakumar Yadav. The India captain wasn’t complaining though.
“I think this is what we want from batters going out there, to express themselves, be happy in their own space, and that’s what he did today,” Suryakumar said at the post-match presentation. “At 6/2, batting that way, ending the powerplay around 67, 70 (75/2), I think it was incredible.”
‘Incredible’ still doesn’t sum it up well enough. That was a rollercoaster ride that got wilder with every banked turn, steep drop and inversion. The strike rate and boundary rate were trashing history as we knew it, and yet most of the shots were hardly improvised. The berserker in Kishan kept going on knowing one thing — that he was hitting the ball well. “Sometimes you understand that you’re batting well. You just have to be in a good headspace and try to watch the ball and play your good shots,” Kishan said at the post-match presentation.
And then, he dwelled on the crux of his approach. “We were looking not to take risks, not to go cross-batted, but I was still looking to score as many runs as possible in the powerplay,” he said. Delirious it might sound, but Abhishek Sharma has shown this to be effective. Read the length early, compute it with the field set for you, find the best angles and shots for maximum results — Kishan made it look easy, risk-free and yet thrilling. “I felt very good in the middle. I was able to connect from ball one, so I backed myself. I had that feeling that if I just played good shots, I could make it happen for the team,” said Kishan.
We are often reminded that cricket is a team game. That nothing else matters above the team’s win. The belief to contribute to that win though stems from excelling in what you are meant to. To Kishan it meant scoring heavily, which he did, unapologetically and unabashedly for himself. And he wasn’t shying away from talking about it as well.
“Sometimes it’s important to do it for yourself, to answer your own questions about how you’re batting and whether you’re capable of playing for India,” he said. “I asked myself one question — can I do it again or not? And I had a very clear answer. I felt I could bat through the innings and play good shots. I just needed to get runs somewhere to answer my questions. Even if I got out, I just wanted to play good cricket, that was it.”
Where does Kishan go from here? Dropping him has become difficult overnight, especially with the T20 World Cup nearing. Kishan thrives on momentum, and India would love to have a batter with such clarity of thought occupying a critical position like No 3. Tilak Varma is expected to return though, as would Axar Patel inevitably. Rinku Singh too has stepped up with the 20-ball 44 in the first T20I, meaning Suryakumar and Gautam Gambhir might have to reappraise their batting resources once again with Sanju Samson already copping a bit of scrutiny.
Happy headache to have? Not really, when you know the answers have been played out even before the questions could be framed properly.
