Picture Credit: Twitter/BCCI
A big reason behind Mumbai Indians' near-perfect campaign in IPL 2020 was the form of youngster Ishan Kishan. The Patna-born cricketer, who had shown a lot of promise with his exploits with the bat in IPL 2020, is however going through a lean patch which has coincided with Mumbai's slip to the seventh position in the points tally. Overall in IPL 2021 so far, Kishan has scored 107 runs in eight innings at a poor average of 13.37. Through IPL 2020, where Kishan had finished as the fifth-highest run-scorer with over 500 runs at a splendid average and strike rate, he had announced himself at the big stage.
On the back of that impressive run, Kishan was selected for the India senior men's team where again he was impressive on his first glimpse on international stage. He not only scored a half-century in his T20I debut but made sure he repeated the same feat when he was picked in the ODI team. The performances convinced the selectors that he was good enough for a place in the T20 World Cup squad.
Justifying Kishan's selection in the squad, chief selector Chetan Sharma said that one of the reasons behind backing the 23-year-old was that he could open the bat and even bat at number 3 and number 4 if the need arises.
However, not long before the ICC event, Kishan's returns with the bat in IPL 2021 haven't been too encouraging.
While the southpaw wasn't in good nick in the first half of the tournament either, it was expected that he will get some runs under his belt when the competition would shift to UAE - the same venue where he was in good form last year. However, that hasn't happened yet and so far in the Middle East country this year, Kishan has managed scores of- 11, 14 and 9.
With little time left for the World Cup, Virat Kohli, who was his opponent captain on Sunday as Mumbai Indians met Royal Challengers Bangalore, donned his India captain hat to reassure the youngster of his ability at the highest level of cricket. The video of their interaction went viral online.
Check out the video here:
Kishan, who had the courage and skill to back himself to begin his ODI career with a six of his first ball against Sri Lanka earlier this year, has definitely a lot of potential. But it remains to be seen if he can turn it around in the remaining fixtures and help the defending champions find their missing mojo. But for now, MI 's middle-order's failure to absorb pressure saw them fall to their third successive defeat of the season on Sunday. RCB completed a comprehensive 54-run in the end as Mumbai slipped to seventh place in the points table.