Ishan Kishan: A man on a mission, looking to make the most of lost time | Cricket News
New Delhi: In the late Sushant Singh Rajput starrer movie MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, there is a scene where the former India captain’s friends suggest that he hit sixes where the selectors were sitting. Ishan Kishan loves the movie and the batter, who was out of the team for the past two years, repeated the scene on December 18, 2025, in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final against Haryana.Selectors watching from the stands, the aggressive southpaw smoked as many as 10 sixes. Although none of them landed where RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha were seated, those thundering maximums helped him make a lot of noise and find his way back into the India T20I set-up.
There are lots of similarities between MS Dhoni and Ishan Kishan. To start with, both learnt the basics of cricket at the MECON SAIL Stadium in Ranchi. They grew up playing a lot of tennis ball cricket on dusty fields in Bihar and Jharkhand, and their bottom hand play tells that story.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Then there are two enthusiastic fathers, Paan Singh Dhoni and Pranav Pandey. Just as the movie showed MS Dhoni’s father being unhappy with his long locks, Pranav Pandey recalls a similar incident from his son’s under 16 days.
After playing under 16, he was back in Patna and playing a local match. I saw him walking with his collar up, wearing his cap backwards. After the match, while driving back home, I told him, ‘Khud ko Azharuddin samajh rahe ho’ (Do you think you are Mohammed Azharuddin already?)
Ishan Kishan’s father
“After playing under 16, he was back in Patna and playing a local match. I saw him walking with his collar up, wearing his cap backwards. After the match, while driving back home, I told him, ‘Khud ko Azharuddin samajh rahe ho’ (Do you think you are Mohammed Azharuddin already?). There are hundreds like you who have played at the under 16 level,” Ishan’s father shared with TimesofIndia.com after his son scored a breathtaking 32 ball 76 in the second T20I against New Zealand.Ishan has the air of a man who has seen one too many swings of misfortune in his career. The knock at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur was a gentle reminder of his talent and how the previous management, led by Rohit Sharma, coach Rahul Dravid and the current chief selector Ajit Agarkar, isolated a talent whose only mistake was asking for clarity on his role and a break due to mental fatigue.
Raipur: India’s Ishan Kishan plays a shot during the second T20I cricket match between India and New Zealand, at Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium, in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. (PTI Photo/Karma Bhutia)(PTI01_23_2026_000752A)
But that is in the past. After spending two years away from the team, he has earned his stripes and clearly looks like a man on a mission and in form. An unfortunate injury to Tilak Varma gave him a chance, and it looks like Ishan grabbed it with both hands.Even though he lasted only five balls in Nagpur, he hit two boundaries. The first ball he faced on his return to international cricket, he lofted Kyle Jamieson straight down the ground. On the third ball, he brought out the short arm jab and hit Jacob Duffy over mid wicket. As an old cricket adage goes, if someone is hitting it straight, it means he is in good nick.In Raipur again, Kishan drove the first ball firmly to mid off. India were reeling at 6 for 2 in a chase of 209. This time, he found a gift, a free hit, on only the third ball of his innings, freed his arms and collected his first boundary off Zakary Foulkes. He took 24 runs off that over, including three boundaries and a six. He never looked back and brought up his half century in just 21 balls inside the powerplay.
Raipur: India’s Ishan Kishan celebrates his half century during the second T20I cricket match between India and New Zealand, at Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium, in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. (PTI Photo/Karma Bhutia)(PTI01_23_2026_000743A)
The way he took on Matt Henry and Mitchell Santner, two of the best in the business, must give him a world of confidence.Apart from his swashbuckling knock, the most fascinating part of the evening was the way everyone in the dugout celebrated Ishan Kishan’s innings. It was not just the standing ovation when he reached his fifty, or the way captain Suryakumar Yadav hugged him in the middle, or teammates and coaching staff tapping his helmet as he crossed the boundary rope. The most fascinating images came later, when he returned to the dugout after changing. He was the toast of the dugout. From Rinku Singh to Ravi Bishnoi to Arshdeep Singh to Abhishek Sharma, everyone congratulated him.The gesture was a sign of how lovable a character he is among his teammates and also why he is a true team man, something R Ashwin had advocated a couple of years ago. “Ishan Kishan is an extraordinary team man. He will mix positive vibes with the water he is giving to the players in the XI,” Ashwin had said.With Tilak most likely to return for the fourth T20I, and Sanju Samson being the designated first choice wicketkeeper, Kishan might get one more match in Guwahati. But he has hit the right note with his 76 in Raipur.
India’s Ishan Kishan plays a shot during the first T20 cricket match between India and New Zealand in Nagpur, India, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)
“I asked myself one question about my comeback. Can I do it again or not?” Ishan said during the post match presentation.This was the same question Ishan’s father kept asking him, whether he had it in him or not. He has answered the critics, including his father.After the end of the second match, a cricket tragic Pranav Pandey gave a piece of advice to his son. “Don’t let this knock get into your head. Stay humble. Let your bat do the talking.”
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On playing in the domestic cricket, the southpaw said: “I was just looking to score runs. Sometimes, it is important to do it for yourself. So you can answer your questions, how you are batting. If you are capable of playing for India, and that’s why it was very much important for me to score runs in domestic cricket. Good part is we (Jharkhand) won the trophy as well. Batting here, taking the same confidence. So it was a pretty good day for me as well.” The boy from Patna now knows a thing or two about how to get back when your back is against the wall. He has certainly learnt his lessons. He has got his second wind, and he knows the importance of it
