Follow UsIshan Kishan didn’t have a great series against West Indies but returned back to form on Thursday (February 25) by smoking 89 off 56 deliveries in the first T20I against Sri Lanka in Lucknow. Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar heaped heavy praise on the wicketkeeper-batter but wants him to be more consistent if he wants to cement his place in the 2022 T20 World Cup squad.
"Certainly the way he batted today, that does give the indication. But this is only the first game. In the three matches against West Indies, he didn't quite look comfortable. That length, pace and bounce were all different. Here the bounce was below the shoulder, towards midriff, making it easier for him," Gavaskar told Star Sports.
"But not taking away anything from his innings, some of the drives and pull shots that he played were terrific, but this was one innings. Let's wait for consistency. Let's wait a couple of matches.
"Once the consistency is there, you can say that 'this is the guy we want', because he offers you three things - he is a wicketkeeper, he is a left-hander and he can bat at top and also finish the innings as well batting at 5 or 6."
Against West Indies, Kishan scored 71 runs in three innings at a strike rate of just over 85. Last night, Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer too chipped in as India amassed 199/2 in their 20 overs. In response, Sri Lanka could only manage 137/6 and lost the first game of the three-match series by 62 runs.
In the pace department, India had Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel, and former left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan feels that the latter two will complement each other very well at the death. Bumrah and Harshal didn’t have to do much in the second T20I as Bhuvneshwar took two wickets early in the powerplay and Rohit was then more invested in giving enough overs to Venkatesh Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja and Deepak Hooda.
"Bumrah and Harshal will be a complementing pair... purely because when you talk about Bumrah, you talk about that awkward angle and fast yorkers. To add to that, he's got that beautiful variation of bowling slower ones. When you look at Harshal, his success story has been around people looking to attack. When batters are coming hard at him, he feels more comfortable and chances of him taking a wicket are on the higher side," Zaheer told Cricbuzz.
"It will work in his favour when he has someone like Bumrah bowling from the other end. Batters would want to take more chances against Harshal than against Bumrah... and it would work in Harshal's favour. Bumrah is gonna make it very difficult for batters to score runs freely and that's gonna give an edge to Harshal to use his variations. I think this pair at the death overs will complement each other."