Twitter reacts to ‘hero’ Ishan Kishan turning villain as batsman’s brainfade leaves coach Jayawardene fuming

Despite James Pattinson, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard all making inroads this season, Ishan Kishan has been the talk of the town right from the very beginning of IPL 2020. First, people questioned the MI management for selecting Saurabh Tiwary ahead of the Jharkhand youngster, after which his heroic 99 versus RCB made him an overnight darling. Kishan was being seen as a cult hero and he did no harm to his reputation in the previous game by taking a blinding diver to dismiss David Warner. 

Today in Abu Dhabi, however, the former U19 player learnt a harsh life lesson - that you can only ride luck and momentum for so long. Having posted scores of 31, 28 and 99 in his previous 3 knocks, the southpaw walked to the wicket with his confidence sky high. On the back of skipper Rohit Sharma’s dismissal, Kishan walked in to bat with the score 88/2 in the 9th over, with his side in a pretty decent position. However, flabbergastingly, the 22-year-old endured a brainfade on his very first ball. 

As leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal, who had dismissed Rohit in the previous delivery, tossed one up outside the left-hander’s off-stump, the eyes of Kishan, who was facing his first ball, lit up. A tad overconfident about his own form, the 22-year-old went for a wild slog-sweep right away, but the shot went horribly wrong as all he could do was lose his shape, miscue it and hit it straight to the hands of Sanju Samson, who took a pretty good catch to ensure MI lost 2 wickets in 2 balls. 

The brain-fade from Kishan was mind-boggling, and the bizarre shot selection from the youngster infuriated coach Mahela Jaywardene, who, as soon as Samson took the catch, seemed to storm out of his seat in the dugout in frustration, anger and disappointment. 

Well, a harsh first-hand reality check for Ishan Kishan, then.