Rising star Ishan Kishan has chance to come out of Rishabh Pant's shadow
India vs England: For a diminutive man, Kishan caught everyone's eye in the rescheduled IPL season of 2020 as he blasted his way to 516 runs to record his best ever season for Mumbai Indians, who retained their title.
It was the January of 2016 and just like every alternate year, this was the year when a bunch of youngsters from the top cricket playing nations would get a chance to fast track their respective careers by putting on a show in the ICC U-19 World Cup. By this time the tournament had become a platform to identify the next big stars of international cricket as many had done well in this tournament and gone on to achieve greatness at the highest stage.
India, perennial favourites in age-group cricket, were led into the tournament by a young wicket-keeper batsman from Jharkhand, the same state team that the colossus Mahendra Singh Dhoni represented. Ishan Kishan, India's captain was tipped to be the man to watch out for but he had competition from within his team. Young Delhi wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant was already making headlines for his 'devil-may-care' batting style and he lit the tournament up with his slam bang hitting.
India vs England 3rd T20I Preview
Pant slammed a century and two half-centuries to end the tournament with 267 runs from 6 matches as India finished runners-up to West Indies. The captain Kishan had a disastrous tournament, scoring just 73 runs from 6 matches with one half-century and had the worst average among all Indian batsmen.
This started a trend as Kishan continued to trail Pant on all counts. IPL, the next big platform for youngsters to showcase their skills, is where the two faced each other again. Pant shone bright for the laggards from Delhi, while Kishan had middling success for the tournament's strongest side Mumbai Indians.
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Pant would go on to play the 2019 ICC World Cup for India and became a regular for the senior team across all formats after MS Dhoni's retirement, despite initial hiccups in his international career. For Kishan, it was about building from the scratch and he did that.
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For a diminutive man, Kishan caught everyone's eye in the rescheduled IPL season of 2020 as he blasted his way to 516 runs to record his best ever season for Mumbai Indians, who retained their title. Pant was part of a rejuvenated Delhi Capitals side, who faced MI in their first ever final, but this time it was Kishan who had the better of Pant, as a batsman.
But the big stage still eluded Kishan as he was ignored for the Australia series. Pant would go on to write his name in the annals of Indian cricket history with his match winning exploits in the Test series against Australia while Kishan continued to rack up the runs in domestic cricket.
As luck would have it, Pant was recalled in the T20 set up against England and Kishan would get his due too with a debut in the second match. Both men look set to be part of India's campaign to win the T20 World Cup this year and have a huge role to play.
For Kishan, who scored a half-century on debut, this is as much a chance to finally get out of the shadows of Pant as it is to join him in writing the next chapter in the history of Indian cricket.
