Meaningful return to domestic cricket benefitted southpaw after axe from India set-up in 2023The Times of India in Colombo: With a day to go for the clash against India, the entire discussion around the Pakistani contingent at the Premadasa Stadium was around the fitness of Abhishek Sharma. They forgot a name in the process — Ishan Kishan.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!While Abhishek has been the crazy diamond of this Indian top-order, Kishan returned from a two-year international exile looking like a rocket-launcher that is ready to destroy anything in its vicinity.
The cobwebs of the mind that had affected Ishan when he was dropped and later axed from the contracts list, seem to have been cleared. Ishan looks hungry and fearless, but there’s a method in his approach that is making the wicketkeeper-batter stand out.Those who know Ishan closely indicate that it has a lot to do with channelizing his thoughts in the right direction, and that has made a lot of difference. First off, he has gone back to playing First Class cricket and wants to play Test cricket for India again.He played most of the matches for Jharkhand in this Ranji season, which helped him get the basics of his game right once more. That was followed by his conquests in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy, which brought him right back into contention. It helped Ishan’s cause that Shubman Gill’s T20 form dropped and Sanju Samson became very patchy with the bat.It’s not that Ishan wasn’t a serious threat with the bat in his ‘first innings’. Let’s not forget, he had scored a superb 82 against Pakistan in the 2023 Asia Cup in SSC after a top-order wobble in a game that was eventually washed out. He was there in India’s ODI World Cup side as well, but once he was dropped from the playing XI, things went south for him very fast.
Sunday’s 40-ball 77 wasn’t just a case of one good day in the office, a lot of thought and hard work had gone into it. The chief difference between the two Ishans — the one of 2023 and the current 2.0 version — is that he is more judicious in his approach. “I did work a lot on my off-side game, so that I could have them bowl to my area of strengths. Premadasa is a big ground and there was intent to hit the gaps and try to take two runs,” Ishan explained how meticulous his planning was.Captain Surya Kumar Yadav, too, was all praise for the dynamic southpaw. “He has been batting the same way in the last few games and domestic cricket. At 0-1, someone needed to take responsibility and he did that amazingly,” the skipper said.
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While Ishan was quite superb in the way he batted, there were areas where Pakistan got it wrong with him. Ishan has always been good against left-arm pacers, yet skipper Salman Ali Agha decided to bowl a woefully out-of-form Shaheen Afridi in the second over after dismissing Abhishek with spin in the first over. In his show, Indian spin legend R Ashwin pointed out how it was crucial for Pakistan to use another spinner from the other end.“Somebody like a Saim Ayub could easily have been introduced in the second over against the two left-handers (Ishan and Tilak Varma). Instead they bowled Afridi, who didn’t do anything to bother Ishan,” Ashwin said.It was just the release Ishan was look-ing for as he used the pace of the bowler to hit a couple of big hits and bring the pressure down. Ishan took a heavy toll of Shadab Khan and Abrar Ahmed, who did bowl to him in the Powerplay.Pakistan coach Mike Hesson had an explanation for that, acknowledging that “Ishan is fearless”. “He’s able to score on both sides of the ground, he isn’t just committed to the leg-side. We know he’s incredibly strong there, but he can reverse. So if you’ve got spin, especially in the Powerplay, it can be a challenge. In the form that he is in, Ishan applied a lot of pressure on our spinners and probably took them away from the basics,” Hesson said.The highlight of the match was the 87-run partnership off 46 balls that Ishan shared with Tilak, who is also known to be a destructive southpaw. But the two decided to take contrasting approaches on Sunday. While Ishan took 39 balls in that partnership and scored 76, Tilak contributed only 11 off seven.The Mumbai Indians left-hander explained later how they worked things out. “The ball was coming a little better in Powerplay and the intent that Ishan showed was great. Even I felt like going for the shots, but decided otherwise because of his form. I told him, ‘Bhai tera lag raha hain (Bro, you are striking it well), so you keep hitting, I will take care of the other end and put the ball in the gaps’,” Tilak, who was Man of the Match in the Asia Cup final not too long ago, said.It’s the collective effort that has been the cornerstone of India’s success in recent times in T20 cricket. At some point, Abhishek too will be back in his elements and with Ishan doing what he is, it will need a massive upset to stop the Indian juggernaut in this World Cup.
