The upcoming Duleep Trophy is a great chance for out-of-favour Ishan Kishan who needs to put hard yards to get his place back in the Indian dressing room. The bigwigs in the BCCI will have their eyes on the wicketkeeper-batter, assessing his hunger to play for the country.
All was well for Ishan Kishan until last year. He had an impressive outing in the ODI Asia Cup last year in Sri Lanka and also endured a decent run in the Australia T20Is post-World Cup. But he decided to opt out of the South Africa tour citing mental fatigue and also skipped the Ranji season, leading to a downfall since. He even tried garnering attention in the IPL 2024 but the tournament didn’t get as expectations. He scored 320 runs in 14 games, averaging 22.85.
As he gets back to red-ball format, Kishan’s childhood coach Uttam Mazumdar looks to the Duleep Trophy as a new mission for the young keeper-batter.
“The key is not to look back at what has happened. It is a new season, (go in with) new thinking and a new goal. I told him, “You have a new mission in your career, rise to it”,” Mazumdar was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
“When a good player doesn’t get to play, only he knows what he is going through. Ishan is no different. Now he is mature because this one year is something he will remember throughout his life. He has to take it positively, make it his strength and fight back,” he added.
Ishan recently turned up for Jharkhand in the Buchi Babu Invitational Tournament with a 107-ball 114 in Jharkhand’s opening-round win over Madhya Pradesh. He scored over half of his team’s total runs, hitting five fours and 10 sixes. However, he managed just 1 and 5 in his side’s loss to Hyderabad last week. The defeat ended their semi-final hopes.
