IPL 2020: ‘We’ll start hearing about him for sure,’ Tom Moody impressed with Mumbai Indians youngster, calls him the ‘real package’

After finishing the league stage of the IPL 2020 at the top-ranked team, Mumbai Indians dished out another clinical performance on Thursday to storm into the final. Batting first, MI posted 200/5, in reply to which Delhi Capitals could only muster 143/8, allowing the defending champions to beat them in Qualifier 1 and book a place in Tuesday’s summit clash.

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There have been plenty of wonderful takeaways of MI this season en route to reaching the final. Suryakumar Yadav has held the batting together in the middle order, and with a fourth fifty of the season, against DC on Thursday, the batsman took his tally to 461 runs. Besides him, Quinton de Kock has been a formidable figure at the top with 483 runs from 15 matches, whereas Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard have regularly managed to give MI the impetus they needed in the death overs.

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Having said that, one of the biggest positive for the four-time champions seems to have been the coming of age of youngster Ishan Kishan, who starred with an unbeaten half-century in Dubai against the Capitals. From 13 matches, Kishan has 483 runs at an average of 53.66 with four fifties ever since he played his first match of the season and hit a scintillating 99 against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

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However, it should not be missed that Kishan is a wicketkeeper batsman and a pretty impressive figure behind the wicket. Yet, somehow his name goes missing whenever the talk of India’s next wicketkeeper is held. The likes of Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant are the first two that come to mind, almost taking the attention off Kishan.

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However, former Australia all-rounder Tom Moody feels that after the success of this season, Kishan the wicketkeeper is sure to enter the reckoning and even though he hasn’t kept wickets for MI this year with de Kock performing wicketkeeping duties, it doesn’t take anything away from the fact that the 22-year-old is a ‘real package’ and one of the most promising keeper batsmen in India currently.

“We’ll start hearing about him for sure. He has been in the shadows and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be under the spotlight now because we’re only seeing the batting that he has to offer,” Moody said on ESPNCricinfo. “We do know that he can keep as well. He doesn’t need to keep in that Mumbai side so he’s the real package. The other thing is that he can open the batting and also looks comfortable batting in the middle and that’s quite rare for a young player to have that sort of open mind and flexibility.

“I did listen to an interview that he did couple of games ago. He was talking about how he was pretty chilled about the fact that opens or bats at 4 or 5, it didn’t matter to him. He was quite happy to play whatever role that was required. That maturity in itself was quite significant.”

Like Moody pointed out, Kishan has been brilliant wherever he has batted for MI this year. He has excelled as an opener, taking the place when Rohit Sharma was injured and done equally well in the middle order. On Thursday, the fact that MI got to 200 had a lot to do with Kishan’s batting. With MI’s score reading 122/4 in the 15th over, together, Kishan and Hardik pummelled 78 runs in the last five overs to ensure MI did not waste the start provided by de Kock and Suryakumar.

“I just thought that his was a particularly mature innings. Let’s face it, Mumbai Indians ended up with 200 but the only reason they ended up with that many I think was because of his craftsmanship in the middle of the innings. They did lose a couple of key wickets, particularly Rohit Sharma at the top and then Pollard went very quickly,” Moody added.

“But he seemed to steady the ship and be the sort of backbone for the innings without any fuss. He seems to be able to navigate those difficult times quite comfortably. When he hits boundaries, he’s got this unbelievable ability to hit the ball out of the ground.”