Dubai: At the end of the day, there was very little which separated the two teams. The second Super Over of this edition of the IPL, barely in it’s second week, showed that both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Champions were capable of raking up a 200-plus total despite the failure of their star captains - while the former had the last laugh in one of the most highly billed contests so far.
However, if one had to choose a standout performer from the match, it had to be the young Ishan Kishan who had to end up on the losing side despite playing a brilliant, counterattacking innings of 99. There were a few ifs and buts if the 22-year-old, who looked gutted after missing out on what would have been an extremely well deserved century, should have been sent out to bat in the Super Over instead of Hardik Pandya - but such debates will always remain.
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It’s extremely pertinent to mention here that Kishan hails from Jharkhand - the state of the iconic figure of Mahendra Singh Dhoni - but it’s safe to assume that MSD’s towering presence in Indian cricket may have influenced the youngster to pick up the wicketkeeping gloves.
A left-handed opener, Kishan’s first claim to fame came in 2016 when he was picked to lead the India under-19s for the Youth World Cup held in Dhaka. Despite a lean run with the bat (73 runs in six innings), in a tournament where Rishabh Pant lit up the scoring charts, he took India to the finals. He was however quick to turn his fortunes around in the domestic Ranji Trophy season that was to follow - ending up as Jharkhand’s leading run-scorer with 799 runs. That included a career best 273 against Delhi, the highest till date by a Jharkhand batsman.
The IPL call-up followed the very next year and the spunky Kishan impressed all with his lower-order hitting for the now defunct Gujarat Lions in 2017. Come the auction for 2018, his stock soared when Mumbai Indians won a bidding war and bagged his services for Rs 6.2 crores.
After a promising start to the 2018 season, his form took a dip through the middle of the tournament but the flashes of brilliance were still there, like his whirlwind 21-ball 62 against the Kolkata Knight Riders, which included four consecutive sixes off Kuldeep Yadav.
The arrival of Quinton De Kock may have robbed Kishan of the regular wicketkeeper-batsman’s spot in the Mumbai team, but his 360 degrees strokeplay on Monday night - including nine sixes with quite a few audcaious pulls with a swift swivel - serves a notice to the team management as to what they are missing!
