Team India secured a 2-0 lead in the five-match series against New Zealand with a dominant 7-wicket victory at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in New Raipur on Friday.
Ishan Kishan’s 76-run performance and Suryakumar Yadav’s unbeaten 82-run innings enabled India to chase down the target of 209 with 28 deliveries remaining.
Kishan, who was presented with the player of the match award jested that he didn’thave anything special to eat for lunch when quizzed on a lighter note.
“Nothing special for lunch, I just had normal food,” he said.
“I was focusing more on what I had to do today and being in a very good headspace for this game.”
“Sometimes you understand that you’re batting well. You just have to be in a good headspace
and try to watch the ball and play your good shots,” the southpaw added.
Kishan and Suryakumar steadied the ship with brilliants knocks as they duo went on to put up a 122-runs stand after Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma fell cheaply early on in the inings.
“We were looking not to take risks, not to go cross-batted, but I was still looking to score as many runs as possible in the powerplay. At the end of the day, when you’re chasing a 200-plus total, you have to get good runs in the powerplay.”
“It depends on how you’re batting. I felt very good in the middle. I was able to connect the ball from ball one, so I backed myself. I had that feeling that if I just played good shots, I could make it happen for the team.”
Kishan spoke of the confidence his purple patch in domestic cricket afforded him in the international format as the batter showed demonstrated his striking prowess against the Kiwis, who were lost for answers to his onslaught.
“I was just looking to score runs in domestic cricket. Sometimes it’s important to do it for yourself, to answer your own questions about how you’re batting and whether you’re capable of playing for India.”
“That’s why it was important for me to play domestic cricket and get runs. The good part was that we won the trophy as well, and I carried that confidence here.”
“So it was a pretty good day for me. I asked myself one question (his comeback) – can I do it again or not? And I had a very clear answer.”
“I felt I could bat through the innings and play good shots. I just needed to get runs somewhere to answer my questions. Even if I got out, I just wanted to play good cricket, that was it.”
