Wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan made a smashing return to domestic red-ball cricket, scoring a century for Jharkhand against Madhya Pradesh on Day 2 of the Buchi Babu tournament, in Sankarnagar,Tamil Nadu, on Friday.
Ishan hit a brilliant 114 in 107 balls, hitting five boundaries and 10 sixes at a strike rate of 106.54. After a watchful start, Kishan cut loose getting to the fifty mark from 60 balls, he hammered the next 50 runs from just 26 balls to race to his century from just 86 balls, bringing it up with a six off MP spinner Adheer Pratap Singh over long-off.
His counter-attacking century helped Jharkhand take the lead as they reached 277/7 at stumps in reply to MP’s first innings total of 225.
Kishan played a first class match after more than a year. His last red-ball match was the second Test match against West Indies in July last year.
Earlier, this year he was left out of BCCI central contracts list after he ignored the Board’s diktat of playing in domestic cricket when not on national duty.
Kishan sought a break during the Indian team’s tour to South Africa citing mental fatigue after which he found himself out of favour. He was asked to play domestic cricket to prove his fitness and stake his claim for a place in the Indian team but he opted against playing for Jharkhand in Ranji Trophy, which saw him getting sidelined further.
Kishan made his competitive comeback at the DY Patil tournament in Mumbai in February before he played for Mumbai Indians in IPL.
Kishan, who holds the record for the fastest double century in ODIs, revealed that he was not in the right frame of mind to play, hence he didn’t turn up for Jharkhand in last season’s Ranji Trophy.
“I took a break and I think it was normal. There is a rule that if you want to make a comeback you must perform in domestic cricket. It is as simple as that. Now, it was very different for me to play domestic cricket as it was not making any sense. I was not in a frame of mind to play and that is why I took a break from international cricket,” he told The Indian Express.
“It doesn’t make sense that you take a break from international cricket and then you go and play domestic matches. Fir toh aap international hi khelte(Then I could have continued playing for India).”
On his reasons for taking a break during the tour of South Africa, Kishan claimed that he found it difficult to accept the fact that he was benched despite scoring runs.
“I was scoring runs and then I found myself on the bench. These things do happen in a team sport. But I experienced travel fatigue. It meant there was something wrong, I was not feeling well or right and so I decided to take a break. However, sadly, barring my family and few close people no one understood that.”
Not getting picked for the national team was a big setback for the young wicketkeeper-batter, who last played for India in a T20 International against Australia in November last year.
“It was depressing. Today I don’t want to say that everything was fine. It was not easy for me at all. You go through a lot. Mere dimag mey ye sab chalta raha ki yaar kya hoga gaya, kyu ho gaya, mere saath kyu (Questions like what happened, why me). All these things happened when I was performing.”
