T20 World Cup 2021: Predicting 5 surprising inclusions in India's squad

2. Ishan Kishan

Much like Varun Chakravarthy, IPL 2020 can be considered Ishan Kishan’s breakthrough season. He managed to score more than 500 runs for Mumbai Indians at an average of 57.33 and a strike rate of 145. That was the last thing he needed to make it to the Indian team after being a consistent performer at the domestic and India A level. 

Between then and now, Kishan has played three T20Is, in one which he made a match-winning 56 runs from 32 balls. On his ODI debut, he made 59 runs from just 42 balls to help India chase down a total with several overs to spare. By all means, the Jharkhand wicketkeeper is a talented player and should deserve a chance in this Indian team.

What doesn’t fall in his favor, for now, is that both KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant are more than likely to feature in the playing XI. But, Kishan as an idea in the middle order works really well. His batting is quite charismatic and he is not afraid to take on the spinners, who can be heavily used in the UAE. Just one more fact about Kishan- he hit 30 sixes in the UAE IPL 2020, most by any player in the tournament.