Former Indian cricketers Ashish Nehra and Parthiv Patel on Sunday (19th June) said that despite showing good intent and scoring runs, there's still room for improvement for the Ishan Kishan.
Kishan had great outings in the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa. Opening the innings, the southpaw provided his team with crucial starts in almost all the innings he played.
Kishan ended the series as the highest run-getter with 206 runs to his name at a staggering strike rate of 150.36 from the five matches to go with two half-centuries.
Although he was the highest run-scorer in the series, it’s fair to say he also looked sloppy many times and it seemed he was short of confidence.
In an interaction on Cricbuzz, Ashish Nehra said that although Kishan’s numbers in the T20I series against South Africa were good, he didn’t look comfortable.
"Ishan Kishan's numbers have been good in this series, but numbers don't always tell the whole story. He has played with a good strike rate too, but it won't be easy for a player like him to do that consistently, especially in T20Is. But the runs he scores have to be impactful. He scored 76 runs in the first game, but he didn't look that comfortable. He would want to convert his starts into big scores," Ashish Nehra said.
Talking about the same, Parthiv Patel said that he was glad to see Kishan play more "fearlessly" against South Africa than in the IPL. He added that the youngster should keep improving this approach and use it whenever he gets a chance to play for India.
“Ishan Kishan had scored 400 plus runs in IPL 2022 and did well in this series as well. But his fearless approach was missing in the IPL. We got a glimpse of that against SA. It is always difficult to bounce back after such a season as he drew a lot of criticism.
“He hit two sixes in the very first over today when he got the chance and that should be his approach going forward. He might be the leading run-scorer of the series, but there's still scope for improvement," Parthiv Patel said.
Ishan Kishan has been named in the Indian side for the T20I series against Ireland. The two-match series will begin on 26th July.
(Cricbuzz inputs)
