During the recent Buchi Babu tournament, the attention was on the Indian wicket-keeper batter Ishan Kishan, who showed his great keeping skills on the opening day of the tournament. But the question was could he continue the same performance with the bat in hand?
Ishan Kishan played his only Test series in West Indies when he was in the team because of the injury of Rishabh Pant, who met a fatal and unfortunate car accident to get ruled out of the whole 2023. The Bihar-born showed great resilience with the stick in the series.
When the team reached South Africa towards the end of the previous year, the Jharkhand batter was ahead in the race to be the first-choice wicket-keeper of the team. However, due to personal reasons, he left the tour in the middle and returned to India back, as KL Rahul did the glovework in his place.
When India faced England in a five-match series at home, Ishan Kishan wasn’t considered for selection, after which he was axed from the list of the BCCI central contracts along with his team-mate Shreyas Iyer due to not being available for the domestic season.
Watch: Ishan Kishan nailed consecutive sixes to celebrate a century
If the first day of the Buchi Babu tournament was about impressing with his keeping skills, on the second day, the batter displayed his class by making headlines with the bat in hand, playing for Jharkhand against Madhya Pradesh.
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The 26-year-old smashed a century for the team on the second day of the game as he came out to bat at number six in the batting order. He recorded his fifty in 61 deliveries after changing his gears and showing aggression, with the next 50 runs coming in 25 balls.
In a video that has gone viral, Ishan Kishan was seen batting on 92 in 84 balls, as Jharkhand was comfortably placed at 227/4. The off-spinner Akash Rajawat went short at the batter as he pulled him over the square leg region for a huge six.
The very next ball was a wide one from Rajawat, as he looked to get away from the arc of the batter, but the youngster used his feet to smash the ball over the cow corner region for a glorious six to celebrate his century in style.
Ishan Kishan ended with an excellent knock of 114 runs in 107 deliveries, as he batted with a strike rate of over 100 and also smashed five boundaries and ten over boundaries in the innings, to mainly focus on his aggressive side. The ton has surely taken the monkey off his back, with the team reaching a prime position in the game.
His last game on the international stage came against Australia in Guwahati in 2023, where he played under the leadership of Suryakumar Yadav.
Ishan Kishan hits a century in his comeback match! Well done Skip! pic.twitter.com/aRBnCZgRsI
— kryptonite✨ (@ish_mania) August 16, 2024
Ishan Kishan will aim to make better progress and continue the same form when he gets to play for India D in the upcoming season of the Duleep Trophy, under the captaincy of Shreyas Iyer, which is set to take place from September 05.
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India will be playing ten Tests, five at home against Bangladesh and New Zealand, along with a few T20Is against the former, before flying to South Africa for another four-match series in the shortest format of the game.
The biggest challenge for them will be the five-match series at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, and with so many players to be part of the squad, the wicket-keeper batter could be an option for the selectors.
