CHENNAI: During the first 20 overs of the second T20I in Raipur, India were shown the harsh realities of their bowling attack if a few players suffer an off night. Sure, there was no Jasprit Bumrah but they depend a lot on Arshdeep Singh's ability to move the new ball and the all phase capacity of Varun Chakravarthy the spinner. With less than three weeks to go for the T20 World Cup, the visiting batters drilled a few holes in those best laid plans on a very placid surface.
But nights like these are essentially auditions for the bash coming up. And Ishan Kishan owned the stage in imperious fashion. Continue in the same fashion over the reminder of the series and it's won't be a surprise if he rubber-stamps his place in the side irrespective of Tilak Varma's injury healing in time. If Varma is fit, the management may well ask Kishan to open, give him the gloves and ask Sanju Samson to carry the drinks.
Is it right to make such a big judgment call a few weeks before a major event? Yep. The southpaw earned a recall to the national side on the back of a victorious Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Jharkhand in December. He did two things for his state-side. If his on the field leadership skills were exemplary, what set the tone was his audacious, hedonistic strokeplay, a joie-de-vivre whenever he came to the middle. It was that same joie-de-vivre that had first put him in the spotlight. That particular house had come crashing down in 2023 after he had requested for a break from all cricket. Following that, he didn't appear for his stateside post a BCCI diktat. He was removed from the BCCI's central contract list. A veritable star had been extinguished.
If what happened in the end of 2023 was shocking, what happened in the end of 2025 was even more shocking. Here was a player who had buckled down, wiser for the experience. Just a determined cricketer who did everything that was asked of him. So, when BCCI decided to drop Shubman Gill for the shortest format, Kishan was a readymade replacement. Plus, he came in with three value added services: left-handed, spare opener plus wicket-keeper. On Friday, he tore into the Black Caps' attack in a manner reminiscent of some of his earlier knocks across teams. What makes Kishan such an enticing option for India is his ability to keep hitting sixes but also his capacity to follow dots with immediate boundaries, an important metric in this format.
What followed was a whirlwind 32-ball 76 (11 fours, four sixes) across eight fever dream overs. When he walked in, the hosts had lost Samson in the first over in a steep chase of 209. When he was dismissed, India were already on course to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. And they essentially did that with seven wickets and 28 balls to spare, with Suryakumar Yadav finding some runs.
Just like some of the other batters in this side, he relies on muscling deliveries in front of the wicket, especially off pace (off his 76, only 14 came behind the stumps). What would please the 27-year-old a lot is that he made these runs against the likes of Matt Henry, one of the best bowlers in the game today. With Jacob Duffy also expected in the first choice XI for the Kiwis, this knock will give him a lot of confidence.
One sequence of boundaries against Mitchell Santner and Henry will form part of many a highlight reel between now and the end of the series. Santner's line and lengths have not been good so far this series but the left-hander still needed to put those away. And he found a hat-trick of fours in the leg-side. The next three balls he faced was off Henry and the results were similar. When Henry, who went into his tool box to ball a change of pace delivery, he pulled him into the stands. When the bowler overcompensated in length, he cleared the in-field on the off side.
4. 4. 4. 6. 4. 4. Six balls, 26 runs. Job done, good night. See you all in three days. It was that kind of night.
Brief scores: New Zealand 208/6 in 20 ovs (Rachin Ravindra 44, Mitchell Santner 47 not out; Kuldeep Yadav 2/35) lost to India 209/3 in 15.2 ovs (Ishan Kishan 76, Suryakumar Yadav n.o 82).
