Follow UsIshan Kishan played a decent knock of 44 off 34 deliveries and helped Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) win over the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at Chepauk by five wickets.
This substantial innings came after a long time for Kishan. After scoring a century in the first game of the season, he scored only 33 runs in the next seven matches and was looking woefully out of touch, with some bad shot selection costing him.
On the day against CSK, he showed great restraint in his shot-making. While his batting wasn’t at its fluent best, it was effective enough to help him score a decent 44, which was the highest score by any batter from both sides in the match.
Speaking on ESPN Cricinfo, Varun Aaron and Aaron Finch praised Kishan’s approach in the innings.
"He is one of those players who, if he gives himself time at the start, can take it really deep," Aaron said of Kishan.
"And he did that today. If you see the way he went about his innings, he wasn't playing anything rash right at the start. He kind of assessed the wicket and then went from there.
“His team must be really pleased. He had a string of really bad scores. I think he scored more runs in this innings than in his last seven innings. He would have been really disappointed not to take it home as it wasn't like a really good delivery [he got out to].”
Finch echoed the same sentiments and praised Kishan's adaptability.
“His ability to read the situation and not overplay his hand early on and be overly aggressive [stood out],” Finch said.
“He made sure he assessed the conditions, which is never easy because you want to maximise the powerplay. On the back of an early wicket, he assessed it and played nicely."
Meanwhile, Kishan's former teammate from Jharkhand, Aaron felt that while the win was a scrappy one for SRH, it would have given them a lot of confidence as it came in an uncharacteristic manner where most of their big batters didn’t perform, and the likes of Kishan and Kamindu Mendis helped them win the game.
"Look, a win is a win," Aaron said.
"Sunrisers, at the position they were in, they would take this win and especially when Abhishek hasn't got runs, [Tavis] Head hasn't got runs and [Heinrich] Klaasen hasn't got runs. Ishan Kishan coming good today...Still not his best innings, I would say. But again, Nitish Kumar Reddy guiding them home at least... So it's still a win. Yes, it was scratchy. It wasn't the easiest wicket to bat on but they have secured the win.
"SRH are not used to scrappy wins. They are used to absolutely steamrolling their opponents into submission and winning games. This is one of those games from which they would take some confidence out of and be like, you know what, we won that game, we can win games like that. We don't have to just go hard and win a game in ten or 11 overs."