More than having maturity, it’s about shot selection: Ishan Kishan
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Ishan Kishan on Friday credited his shot selection to his maturity as a player, as the India wicketkeeper-batter smashed his sixth half-century in the Indian Premier League.
Kishan hit 79 off 46 balls with eight fours and three sixes to power SRH to 255 for four, after which Royal Challengers Bengaluru responded with 200 for four to go down by 55 runs.
“Just happy about it, taking one match at a time, not making it complicated for myself, just keeping it simple like I spoke earlier before the tournament. It’s just about watching the ball and playing your game,” Kishan told the broadcaster after the match.
“More than maturity, it’s about shot selection. You (should) know when to play which shot, (and) who to target. I’m just trying to take one ball at a time, know the situation, understand the pitch and just play your shots,” he said.
Kishan continued, “I just take one match at a time, but I don’t know why but I do feel confident when I’m playing against them and (at the) end of the day, fortune favours the brave and I just try to do my thing and it works in my way.”
Kishan, who also brought up his 500 runs in this IPL on Friday, said keeping it simple was also crucial for SRH who have finished third in the points table after their 14 matches in the group stage.
“Pat (Cummins) coming in, one of the best bowlers, it’s very good to have him. Credit goes to everyone for keeping us in the zone. you just keep it simple, it’s about enjoying in the middle. I need to give the credit to the support staff and Pat Cummins,” he said.
SRH skipper Cummins expressed his delight in having a strong bowling attack after Eshan Malinga (2/33) and Sakib Hussain (1/31) stifled the RCB batters.
“The boys batted fantastically. Pretty good wicket, knew a lot of things had to go our way. We threw a few things at them, it’s still a big win,” he said.
“The way Eshan has bowled all through the tournament, Sakib there as well, captain’s dream. We’ll rest for a couple of days. We’ll know who we’re playing in a couple of days.” RCB captain Rajat Patidar said the priority of his team, which finished on the first spot followed by Gujarat Titans on second, was to remain at the top of the points table.
“The top priority was to be on the top, but I think, there were a lot of runs in the first innings. I think 255 is a good score on this wicket,” Patidar said.
“Their five bowlers executed the slow bouncers and yorkers pretty well. Obviously, Hyderabad, I think it’s a good wicket, but when you start bowling slow bouncers, slow into the wicket, it’s really tough for the batsman to score the runs,” he added.
Patidar also credited SRH batters for making the most of the home advantage in the first half of the game, while saying the pitch did not slow down in the second innings.
“Their top five batsmen played really well, and they purely dominated in the first innings. Not really, but the slow bouncer was gripping a bit, but I think the way... their strength is slow bouncers and yorkers, they executed pretty well,” he said.
