Facing a high-flying Rajasthan Royals (RR) in a must-win encounter, came out all guns blazing and registered a dominating eight-wicket win in Sharjah. 

With this win, the five-time IPL champions also kept alive their hopes of making it to the playoffs. 

After their superb bowling performance, which saw them restrict Sanju Samson’s side to a paltry total of 90/9 in 20 overs, the MI batters made a short work of the target, finishing the match inside nine overs. 

Dominant display from !

The -led unit seal a comprehensive -wicket win and registered their th win of the .

Scorecard

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL)

, making a comeback to the side, came out to open the innings alongside skipper and dominated the bowlers completely, hitting them to all parts of the famous ground. 

Looking at how batters from both teams performed, it seemed as if the match was played on two completely different tracks. 

The RR batters struggled to time the ball in the first innings whereas Kishan found no such difficulty and he met almost every delivery right from the middle of his willow. 

* Runs
Balls
Fours
Sixes set the stage on fire & hammered a sensational match-winning half-century.

Watch that stroke-filled display

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL)

This was his first half-century of the season and it couldn’t have come at a better time than this. Prior to this game, Kishan was struggling for runs, hence was dropped on the bench in their previous two games. 

By blasting an unbeaten 50 off just 25 balls, Kishan proved why he is rated so highly by everyone. When runs are flowing off your bat, everything seems perfect but a true test of any athlete is how well he conducts himself when his back is against the wall. 

. Most Valuable Asset of the Match between and is Ishan Kishan.

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL)

After the match, the 23-year-old southpaw was asked how he dealt with the difficult phase and if he tried anything different to get his old mojo back. 

Kishan revealed that he talked to some of his senior teammates and , and their advice helped him a lot. 

© Twitter IPL

“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 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,” Kishan said in the post-match presentation. 

“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.” 

Ishan Kishan scored match winning 50*(25) to keep MI hopes alive

Thanks to tips from Virat Kohli

— ಹರ್ಷ (@grharsh)

However, instead of praising the senior players for helping out the youngster in his difficult time, Kohli and Rohit fans started an unnecessary fight on social media. 

Kohli supporters tried to pull the MI skipper down for not showing enough faith in his wicket-keeper and dropping him out based on a few bad performances, while Rohit fans accused Kohli of taking all the credit for Kishan’s success. 

If you see MI,s last training video, Rohit is training and giving tips to Ishan. So stop your agenda here.

— Harsh (@Harsh67654358)

Virat was only on Camera. Original training and motivation was given by Rohit Sharma.

— Harsh (@Harsh67654358)

He rested him to gain his confidence...Even Rohit told that tough to rest Ishan

— Hariharan (@hariaran50)

And Rohit dropped him.. Virat survived his 3rd position many times for others n this rohit can't even once make him open stupid

— soni | King Kohli (@soniyaaaaa01)  

Senior players talking to young cricketers and sharing their wisdom with them is perhaps one of the biggest benefits of the IPL. 

It was heartening to see Kishan acknowledging the support he got from the senior pros in his post-match interview and fans fighting over something as silly as this was totally uncalled for.