With scores of 49(19) and 64(33), Ishan Kishan has already proven his acumen in the intra-squad matches. (Sunrisers Hyderabad)
Rajasthan Royals’ stand-in skipper Riyan Parag had recalled in a YouTube show how Sunrisers Hyderabad’s feat of scoring 135 runs just in the Powerplay left his team stunned. ‘What the hell is going on?’ was how he described it. It wasn’t a one-off with SRH last year, they would do such breathtaking feats in the powerplay more than once and credit for those meteoric starts went largely to Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma.
The brothers of destruction have created so much havoc that the parameters of what a good T20 score against SRH would be measured differently. The magic mark of 300, which used to take quite a bit of work in a 50-over format, becomes a curiosity this year, whether it can be breached by this side in just T20 overs. In IPL 2024, 266/7 is how far SRH would go. And for IPL 2025, they have added further ammunition to their batting armoury by bringing in Ishan Kishan for Rs 11.25 crores.
“That is the challenge of coming to Hyderabad and playing against SRH. I think they come ultra-aggressively to any bowling line-up. I think definitely we have our plans. That is the fun of IPL. You don’t know what to expect out of the opposition and you get to be challenged each and every ball in the game. So we are well prepared for them and let’s see what happens tomorrow,” said Rajasthan Royals regular skipper Sanju Samson.
With scores of 49(19) and 64(33) the pocket-size dynamo has already proven his acumen in the intra-squad matches. However, these knocks have come opening the batting in the absence of Travis Head. The Australian will be handed over his spot and Ishan has to make his way into the middle-order.
If the shots don’t get you, the banter surely will 💥😆
Ishan Kishan | #PlayWithFire pic.twitter.com/o1lWoFbjyi
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) March 16, 2025
“I think Ishan compliments (Head and Abhishek) them as well as anyone. He has a similar style of game, obviously he’s left-handed and he has the ability to take on all types of bowlers. So I think we’re very lucky to have him part of the squad as I said to compliment those two and then have Nitish (Kumar Reddy) and (Heinrich Klaassen and a few of our younger batters to be able to come to the squad as well,” Sunrisers Head Coach Daniel Vettori said on Saturday.
| Ishan Kishan by position | Innings | Runs | Strike rate | Average |
| Opening | 55 | 1733 | 141.82 | 33.98 |
| At 3 | 11 | 216 | 120 | 19.64 |
| At 4 | 23 | 594 | 129.98 | 28.29 |
Batting in the middle order is not a position which is completely alien to Ishan but a position in which he did not have much success in the past compared to the opening slot. In the first six overs, when there are only two fielders outside the ring and there is pace on the ball to work with, Ishan has done proper damage playing for Mumbai Indians or in the Indian colours.
But SRH would be hoping he could replicate his form from 2020 which was a bit of an anomaly where he played most of the games in the middle for MI. It has been his most productive season in the IPL too, as he managed to score 516 runs while averaging 57.33 and striking at 145.76. The pitches here at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium have been not too bad for batting and Ishan could make it count.
“It is a very high-scoring pitch here as we all know. I think I played last game for India here and we almost touched 300. SRH is also scoring continuously high 200s here. So let’s see. It is an afternoon game. You never know with the game of cricket it can go either way,” Samson said, commenting on the pitch for Sunday’s clash.
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Regardless of where he bats and how the pitches behave, for his own career, Ishan needs a big season for the Sunrisers. It was only in 2022 when Ishan was bought by Mumbai for Rs 15.25 crores which was the second-highest price for an Indian player at the time. He was also a regular part of the Indian squads. Though the axing from the Indian team is not completely a performance-based issue, his performance in the league has been mediocre since MI paid big money to bring him back on board.
Though he continues to score at a healthy strike rate he has not reached the potential which he showed in the 2020 season. More often than not, there have been cameos in the powerplay than match-winning innings. A good season for SRH might be just the recipe the 26-year-old needs to resurrect his Indian career.
