COLOMBO: What Rohit Sharma was doing in the last few ICC events, Ishan Kishan is doing at this event. Keep hitting. If it's small, round and white and coming towards your general direction, just hit. It doesn't matter if it's not in your swinging arc because that's literally your only job when you are batting.
Hit.
On Sunday, he didn't care. Even when he was receiving treatment on his back side, he was eager to just get on with the game, worried that if he stopped, he would lose rhythm. He needn't have worried. He wasn't going to lose it. Not on his night of nights.
He despatched them for sixes, he late cut Abrar Ahmed — one of Pakistan's biggest threats coming into the game — for a four with touch that didn't belong in this world. Few balls later, he sent him over cover.
He welcomed Shaheen Shah Afridi with a six, pulled mercilessly into the first tier. Ahmed's first ball, drifting into the pads, was swept for six behind square. He was in that kind of mood that when he leathered one right into Tilak Varma's thigh region, Kishan didn't really bother apologising. "Damn, that's a four I have missed out on," or something like that was what he must have muttered. Sorry, Varma, but this can be a harsh sport.
On Saturday, Agha said their 'trump card' was Usman Tariq. But Kishan's whirlwind 40-ball 77 ensured the Men In Blue were way ahead of the eight ball even before Tariq had come into the attack. Kishan hadn't just changed the rules of this Group A encounter, he hid it, threw the keys away and changed the goalposts.
It has to be said that there was an element of the opposition feeding him 'hit-me balls' once every minute. He's destructive on the leg side but has shown a propensity to struggle if it's on top of off or wide outside off — something that former Indian cricket analyst, Himanish Gangjoo, had posted on X. But the spinners and the lone pacer, Afridi, seem to have gotten carried away because of the occasion. There were a lot of balls right in his wheelhouse and they kept disappearing into all parts of the vast Stadium.
Two things sent the keeper-batter's great innings into ludicrous territory. There was enough spin and purchase of the surface to create a lot of doubt in the batters' minds but he took the conditions out of the equation as he had married clarity of thought with shot execution. The leg side was going to be his friend and 52 out of his 77 runs came on that side (68 per cent).
The other thing about the 27-year-old is he hasn't changed his methods since earning a last-minute recall at the expense of Shubman Gill. This — powerplay basher, take the game head-on and ultra role clarity -- was what put him back in the minds of the selectors when the World Cup was round the corner. At the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he struck at 197.3 as he led Jharkhand to victory in the game's shortest format.
When he was denied a central contract by the previous regime on disciplinary grounds, he must have felt that the wall was closing. He didn't have many friends within the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and it was hard to see a way back for him. It was hard to see a way for him even when the BCCI had drafted him in because Sanju Samson was going to be Abhishek Sharma's partner. But then, Kishan effectively changed the name of the game.
He has an ODI double and is a household name thanks to his Indian Premier League (IPL) exploits but he reached for and touched the stars on Sunday.
