Sunrisers Hyderabad assistant coach James Franklin was effusive in his praise for Ishan Kishan after his match-winning knock in the five-wicket victory over Chennai Super Kings, which secured his team a place in the IPL playoffs.

On a difficult, sluggish pitch that caught the batters off guard and made scoring a stern challenge, Ishan produced a sublime 70 off 47 balls.

His innings not only shifted the momentum decisively but also made run-scoring appear effortless on a difficult surface, which ultimately changing the course of the game.

“Yeah, look, I think Ishan’s been brilliant for us this season. He’s obviously been terrific for India recently as well. And he sort of just carried that form into this IPL. I’d hazard a guess, probably, if you asked Ishan so far in this year’s IPL, that was probably his best innings,” said Franklin after SRH’s five-wicket win over CSK, a result that significantly dented the five-time champion’s hopes this season.

“Just for the situation, the game, the surface, we are used to in the IPL playing on a lot of very flat surfaces that are conducive to power hitting. But today, batters had to craft their innings in a different way.

“And I thought Ishan’s innings today was just full of maturity, the way that he assessed what he needed to do and how he needed to do it. And obviously, bat, as deep as he could through the 20 overs,” he added.

Ishan and Klaasen’s (47) 75-run partnership stood out for its composure after early jolts, after Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma fell cheaply. On a surface that made stroke-making difficult, the duo steadied the innings and calmly negotiated testing conditions to rebuild control.

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“Ishan’s partnership with Klaasen was brilliant. Klaasen’s (contribution) has been immense for us right through this IPL. This is one of the best middle-order batting performances, I think you’ll see through an IPL season, what he’s (Klaasen) producing at the moment, reading the situation, batting at a tempo that keeps the scoreboard moving in a positive way,” said Franklin.

Franklin opined that CSK would have been content setting a total of 180 on a pitch like this, backing itself to defend it. However, he felt SRH’s bowlers conceded at least 20 runs too many.

He added that Ishan and Klaasen ultimately altered the equation with their decisive partnership, shifting the momentum firmly in SRH’s favour.

“Collectively, we worked it out pretty quickly. Obviously a couple of guys probably didn’t have their best nights with the ball, and hence why probably Chennai got up to the score that they did, which in honest reflection was probably 20 runs over par.

“I think at half time, Chennai would have been pretty happy with that score, and we knew that that would take some chasing down and would take some serious batting, and probably a significant partnership, and that’s what ended up happening,” said Franklin.

“(The pitch) we expected it not to be have a lot of pace, but we didn’t expect it to be as slow as it was. (But) it just took an unbelievable partnership between Ishan and Heinrich to get us in front of the game.”

Published on May 19, 2026