Flamboyant wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan played an astonishing knock of 173 runs against Madhya Pradesh in the Elite Group B match of Vijay Hazare Trophy. Kishan played a captain’s knock for Jharkhand and dominated the Madhya Pradesh bowling attack during his 94-ball stay in the middle. The southpaw’s innings was laced with 19 fours and 11 sixes.
With the power-pack performance, Kishan made a huge statement ahead of IPL 2021 and India’s squad announcement for the limited-overs series against England.
Earlier, MP captain Parth Sahani won the toss and elected to bowl first in the opening game of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021. Ishwar Pandey provided an early breakthrough to MP by dismissing opener Utkarsh Singh for just 6. After that, Kishan took full control over the game and played one of the most dominating knocks in the tournament’s history.
Kishan started his innings with some cautious efforts as he reached the 50-run mark in 43 balls but after that, he just exploded over the MP bowlers. The southpaw hit the century in 74 balls and then the scoring speed just got higher from there. He scored his last 71 runs in just 20 balls.
The Jharkhand captain was dismissed on 173 runs by Gaurav Yadav in the 28th over. However, he shattered several records in List A cricket with his astonishing innings. He registered the highest score by an India wicketkeeper-captain in List A cricket. The southpaw also slammed the second fastest 150 in List A cricket for India – 86 balls. The top on the list is another wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik who achieved the feat in 80 balls against Hyderabad in 2011.
Apart from Kishan, Virat Singh (68), Sumit Kumar (52) and Anukul Roy (72) made some valuable contributions with the bat as Jharkhand posted 422/9 at the scoreboard in 50 overs, which is the highest total by an Indian domestic side in List A cricket.
At the time of filing the copy, Madhya Pradesh were five down for just 75 in 14 overs as Varun Aaron claimed four wickets. Interestingly, Kishan played a crucial role in all four dismissals as he caught them behind the stumps.