India captain Suryakumar Yadav expressed confidence in Ishan Kishan's batting abilities and backed him to deliver in the T20 World Cup. The latter made a remarkable return to international cricket in the five-match T20I series against New Zealand. He scored a total of 215 runs in four innings, including a century and half-century each. He has been picked in the Men in Blue's squad and will be looking to maintain his form in the upcoming tournament.
Suryakumar said that the team expects Kishan to continue performing well in the T20 World Cup and confirmed that the wicketkeeper-batter will not be batting lower than No.3.
"He has been batting well in all the tournament he has played. And we expect him to play the same way he has been playing wherever he bats, of course he is not going to bat below 3," Suryakumar said in the pre-match press-conference.
Kishan's performance in NZ T20Is
After being out of the team for two years, Kishan made a spectacular return to international cricket with the T20I series against New Zealand. Despite getting dismissed cheaply for eight runs in the first match, the left-hand batter came out all guns blazing in the second game and played an impressive knock of 76. He made a quick-fire 28 in the third match before smacking his maiden hundred of the format in the fifth and final T20I.
Kishan to replace Samson as the opener?
Kishan also played a fiery knock of 53 runs from just 20 deliveries in the warm-up match against South Africa and this time he did so while opening the innings alongside Abhishek Sharma. If the 27-year-old does go on to open for the Men in Blue in the T20 World Cup, then Sanju Samson may get dropped to the bench as he has been going through a poor run fo form and had failed to register any big score in the five games against New Zealand. It remains to be seen how India line up for their opening clash of the tournament against USA that will be played on February 7.