However, in Tuesday’s fixture against Rajasthan Royals (RR), Ishan came back to form, guiding MI to a dominating win. The Patna-born made a mockery of RR’s bowling attack on a sluggish pitch, playing an unbeaten knock of 50 runs from just 25 deliveries.
After the match, Ishan expressed his happiness, stating he enjoyed batting at the top and helped the team grab those important two points.
“It’s nice to be back opening, getting runs for the team, and helping win by a big margin. Feeling really good was much needed for our team to get momentum. It was good to field first, got a good idea of the surface,” said Ishan during the post-match presentation.
The 23-year-old mentioned that ups and downs are part and parcel of the game, but he got great support from his teammates. Ishan also revealed how a chat with Virat Kohli helped him regain his confidence. The Jharkhand cricketer mentioned Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard guided him to have a self-belief which played a massive role behind his comeback.
“I feel ups and downs are a big part of any sportsman. I was also not in good shape. Most of the batters were not getting runs like in previous seasons. We had great support staff. Our captain… In fact, I had a chat with Virat bhai, Hardik bhai.. everyone was there to support me,” revealed Ishan.
“I had a chat with KP (Pollard), who said you just need to keep things simple, bat the way you used to do, just watch the videos of what you did in the last season. I watched a few videos of my batting, and that gave me a bit of confidence,” he added.
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