OPINION
Follow UsIt certainly didn’t make sense when Mumbai Indians released Ishan Kishan and retained Suryakumar Yadav as their third pick in the IPL 2022 retention. There were no reports about Ishan demanding more money or being unsatisfied with the offer given, but for a player like Ishan to be in the auction made every franchise aware of Mumbai’s desperation. The resultant lacunae in managing the overall resources to get other requirements fulfilled came as a challenging proposition.
Despite that Mumbai owners were ecstatic despite splurging INR 15.25 crore to secure his services tells you everything you need to know about Ishan’s evolution in the Indian cricketing milieu. One of the most fearless batters of this generation and a classic template of a T20 opener, Ishan had his game sorted in the last three years to ensure the transition to a more prominent role alongside Rohit Sharma wouldn’t be too far fetched an idea.
On Sunday, with the Mumbai crowd strongly behind him, Ishan had pressure on him to justify his price tag. Players might surge it off in interviews that the price tags don’t matter, but the pressure of that uncontrollable used to get the better of many talented cricketers in the past. And Ishan had to release that monkey off the back and boy, did he do that in some style!
He was of course helped by some innocuous deliveries from Delhi Capitals, who were definitely short-handed by the absence of some key players, for which they had to field only two overseas players in the form of Tim Seifert and Rovman Powell. But he could have been deceived the same as Rohit did or for that matter, their entire middle order. With the wicket offering variable bounce, Ishan played to the merit of the ball, holding one end up but not letting his confidence go dry in search of some extra zing.
For all the accolades that Shardul gets for his ability to chip in with wickets, he can never be a spearhead and the same goes with Khaleel Ahmed too. But Delhi had a stunning effort from Kuldeep Yadav from one end to deceive the batters for turn and Ishan, being a left-hander, could have boarded that train. But judicious against spin and destructive against pace, Ishan had his own template to succeed.
In six years of Indian Premier League, Ishan has accumulated enough experience to be one master wrecker but he still has the affinity to fiddle around and lose his tempo at times. He is no different from Rohit when it comes to building the innings but he does it at a better pace even in the first 10 balls. That gives him a great head start and he can use that leverage to construct better innings. In IPL since 2019, Ishan Kishan has scored at a strike rate of 121.6 in his first 20 balls. However, between balls ranging from 21 to 30, he strikes at 162.9 and when he faces 30+ balls, he strikes at 192.1. And on days like these, when he decided to bat deep, you know how severe the impact would be.
Delhi Capitals realized it the hard way.
Well, with Mumbai bowlers underperforming massively, Mumbai couldn’t win the game and that is also down to how brilliantly Lalit Yadav and Axar Patel batted as well. But the game further laid down the immense potential that Ishan holds for Mumbai and Indian cricket. It very well justifies the decision of the Indian team management to back him after a disastrous series against West Indies a couple of months ago. He came back stronger against Sri Lanka and now has taken off in the IPL like any player would dream of. And if he continues the same, other teams better beware.
