The Indian team management had been wary on two counts ahead of the much-hyped Sunday showdown against Pakistan.

Wiser by the experience, they knew Shaheen Shah Afridi’s left-arm pace could create problems, but it was Usman Tariq’s unconventional action that had made them circumspect. It showed in their practice session as Suryakumar Yadav emulated Tariq’s pause in his delivery stride before coming to a stop and slinging it down.

The gameplan was simple — don’t allow them to settle into a rhythm.

Ishan Kishan took it upon himself to counter Afridi as he banged his first ball over deep square leg for six and then followed it up with a lucky boundary. The opener had shown the intent to attack in conditions where run-scoring wasn’t easy.

As leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed tried to turn the ball in to the lefthander in his first over, Ishan slog swept him over the ropes. By then, Pakistan had realised it would be tough to put a leash on Ishan’s unconventional ways. Shadab Khan too tried a similar ploy and was promptly taken by the collar.

While the others struggled to get used to the slow and difficult surface, where the balls stopped and some held up, Ishan seemed to be batting in a different plane, striking at 192.50.

That the second-highest run-scorer of the innings after Ishan’s 77 off 40 was Surya (32 off 29) in itself tells a story. In all, 66 came off the spinners in 37 balls, which was a telling blow to Pakistan’s strategy.

“Kishan is fearless,” Pakistan coach Mike Hesson admitted at a news conference later. “He’s able to score both sides of the ground, so he’s not just committed to the leg side. We know he’s incredibly strong. But he can reverse, so if you’ve got spinners, especially in the Powerplay, it can be a challenge.

“But the fact that he’s in a rare vein of form applied a lot of pressure to our spinners and probably took them away from the basics. The pitch was actually doing a lot when we bowled nice and slow into it. But outside of that, no one really scored better than a-run-a-ball other than Kishan.”

While Pakistan had their plans in place for every other batter, they probably never imagined Ishan’s versatility or his ability to clear the long boundaries on either end of the Premadasa.

“I think Ishan thought something out of the box,” Surya put it down well. He repeatedly made room on the off side even as the Pakistanis tried to curb his natural instincts.

India had misinterpreted the pitch at the Wankhede in the opener against the USA when every batter went for their shots even after failing to get used to the sluggish surface. But they never committed the mistake a second time at the Premadasa as they allowed Ishan to prosper and built the innings around him.

“He waits for the ball even when he plays cross-batted shots. It’s not a wild slog. Playing across the line has always got its hazards. But, if you are waiting for the ball like he does, you can find success,” Sunil Gavaskar said during commentary.

Ishan’s innings will be remembered for long, much like Virat Kohli’s epic in Melbourne more than three years ago or Sachin Tendulkar’s trend-setting 98 at Centurion in the 2003 ODI World Cup.

The circumstances are different, but the impact is same.