Ishan Kishan's coming of age
Ishan Kishan came into this side in record time, and when here, scored just as quick.
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On a tough Premadasa wicket, India are 88/2 in the ninth over in cricket’s golden goose game. Their left-handed opener has just been dismissed after scoring 77 of those runs. Yes, he’s been on strike for an unusually high number of balls, but they could only add another 87 runs after that blitz.
It’s truly one of the greatest knocks for his country in T20 World Cups. It was brutality.
If you were told this two months ago, you wouldn’t think twice before assuming that the batter is Abhishek Sharma. In 2025, Abhishek whacked the ball at an average of 43 and a strike rate of 193 for India. Plus, he had scores of 31(13) & 74(39) against Pakistan in Dubai in the Asia Cup. This innings at Premadasa is the kind of knock Abhishek Sharma plays.
Except this time, he didn’t.
Instead, it was someone who only passed 50 twice in his last IPL season, and once the year prior. One of those was a hundred, but in the harsh world of Indian batting, he was miles behind to even get in the squad, let alone be a starter. It was even less likely that he would be outbatting Air Abhishek.
Ishan Kishan came into this side in record time, and when here, scored just as quick.
He last played a T20I in November 2023. Since then, he had seen India win a T20 World Cup, an Asia Cup and go undefeated in bilateral series with a win-loss record that is honestly stupid for such a volatile format.
Kishan’s advanced numbers in the last two seasons of the IPL aren’t great either. In 2024, he had a true strike rate of 6 but at a -10 true average. He would swing hard, but miss often.
Mumbai Indians did not retain him, though they did bid for him till 3.2 crore. SRH eventually snapped him up for 11.25 crore, with reasonable interest from Punjab and Delhi. It meant teams still valued what he could bring to the table. But part of that had to be his wicketkeeping as well.
We said at the time it was a good buy, and the reason wasn’t form, it was age. The question for Kishan has never been talent, it has been maturity, professionalism and repeatability. SRH made a gamble that he was ready.
Unfortunately for them, more than 56% of his runs came in just two innings - against RR in their first match, and RCB in their penultimate game of the season. Based on this, there is no way Kishan plays in the World Cup.
But the thing everyone had been waiting for finally occurred. For Jharkhand, Kishan went nuts. It was a lower level, and they could have ignored it for one of their many other talented players. India, however, did something very clever. They decided this wasn’t just a few good games, but signs that the real Kishan had finally arrived.
In the last 22 innings for India and Jharkhand, Ishan Kishan has smoked nearly a thousand runs at an average of over 47, while striking at more than two runs a ball.
This is the Ishan Kishan everyone has been waiting for.
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Ishan Kishan made his T20 debut for Jharkhand almost 12 years ago. He played the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in April 2014, which meant he was only 15 at the time.
Two other well-known players that debuted in the competition at a similar age or younger were Riyan Parag and, wait for it, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
Jos Buttler is already talking about Vaibhav as the greatest player he’s ever seen in the sport. And while Parag might not be the same level of prodigy, he debuted in the IPL at just 17. Until Vaibhav’s arrival, he was the youngest to score a fifty in the league.
So clearly, we’re talking about wunderkids here. And Kishan makes that conversation too; he made his first-class debut later that year, and he also led India to the final of the 2016 U-19 World Cup. Like Parag, he also played in the IPL before he could legally drive a car in India.
But Kishan’s first two seasons in the SMAT were pretty ordinary. He struggled to average 20, or score at a run a ball. Even in under-19 ODIs, he only made 186 runs in 12 innings at a strike rate of just over 80.
And his first IPL - right after the U-19 World Cup - yielded only 42 runs in five knocks, though he batted in the lower order.
