On his debut T20I, last year in March, Ishan Kishan was up against Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan, Sam Curran and Adil Rashid. He walloped all of them for a stunning fifty.
11 months later, Kishan took the attack to Dushmantha Chameera and Lahiru Kumara, two bowlers who bowl at pace in excess of 140 Kph. He hammered them and the rest of the Sri Lanka bowling attack to register his second T20I fifty – an entertaining innings of 89 runs off 56 balls.
Between these two knocks, Kishan had gone through a rollercoaster – with being dropped from Mumbai Indians‘ eleven during the IPL 2021, and then making a thunderous return with two fifties at the end of the season, then going on to play for India at the T20 World Cup before bagging a 15.25 crore contract at the mega-auction.
A long journey – at least more than a decade – at international cricket awaits the young lad from Bihar.
Ishan was born in Nawada, Bihar, in July 1998, to Pranav Kumar Pandey and Suchitra Singh. He started playing cricket when he was 7 years old. His talent was spotted by his coach who asked Ishan’s father to give serious thought to cricket as a profession.
At the same time, Ishan’s elder brother, Raj, also used to play cricket. His dad, who is in the construction business, was sceptical of both his sons pursuing cricket as a profession, due to the high risk coming with such decisions. Realizing Ishan’s talent and great potential, Raj in that case sacrificed his dream and thus, played a pivotal role in Kishan’s journey to success, who was known to be very mischievous and indisciplined.
When playing cricket in his colony, he would break the doors and windows of the houses and hide. Ishan’s parents had to hear frequent complaints from their neighbours. When in sixth grade, Ishan wanted to pierce his ears. However, with the school against it, he excused that it was his grandfather’s last wish, who is still alive!!
He used to regularly play at the Moen-ul-Haque stadium in Patna and loved watching wicket keepers diving around. A quirk of fate – his school wicketkeeper did not turn up one day and Ishan was asked to keep wicket when he took 2 catches and effected a stumping – made him take up wicket-keeping as an additional skillset.
Ishan also had to leave his school, DPS, for his indiscipline and lack of attendance. When Ishan was a kid, Raj was getting ready for U-14 trials of School Games Federation of India (SGFI) and Ishan was adamant that he also wanted to try.
His immense talent caught the eye of the selectors then and was selected. In his formative years, he used to play in Bihar. However, after the Bihar Cricket Association lost its affiliation, Ishan moved his base to Jharkhand at the age of 15.
The climb to the top has been fairly smooth for the southpaw. He played for SAIL and then the U-16team, then the U-19team and got picked for the Vijay Hazare trophy and finally made it to the Ranji team.
Kishan captained India at the 2016 under-19 World Cup and led the team to the final where they lost to West Indies.
Kishan, who still holds the record for the highest individual score in Ranji Trophy by a Jharkhand player (273) in the innings in which he smashed 14 sixes, was bought by Gujarat Lions in 2016 and played two IPL seasons before Mumbai bought him at the 2018 mega-auction. Opportunities and backing at MI paved the path for the left-hander to reach the national side.
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