IPL: Stand-in captaincy completes a comeback arc for Ishan Kishan

The mantle of stand-in captaincy for Ishan Kishan at Sunrisers Hyderabad in the upcoming IPL 2026 will prepare him for bigger responsibilities, according to his childhood coach. Kishan, who celebrated his comeback in international cricket by being the fourth highest scorer in the T20 World Cup (317 runs), has been named as the interim captain for the first few matches till Pat Cummins is declared fit.

‘’Cummins will miss a few games while recovering from injury. Until he recovers, Kishan will be the captain and Abhishek (Sharma) will be the vice-captain,’’ SRH announced on their social media. While captaining a IPL franchise invites his own pressure, his coach Uttam Majumdar feels that 27-year-old Ishan has undergone a sufficient probation period to be able to lead a squad full of overseas stars.

 Speaking to the National Herald over phone, Majumdar said: ‘’It often goes under the radar that Ishan had been the captain of Under-19 India in a World Cup where the likes of Rishabh Pant played under him and they finished runners-up. He has also captained India A, Rest of India while he had been in charge of his state team Jharkhand in all three formats – winning the T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in December where he had a great run of personal form.’’

The IPL captaincy, however, completes a full circle in the comeback arc of Ishan – who even less than four months back – could have imagined such a resurrection of fortunes only in his dreams. The SMAT, where he finished with 517 runs at an average of 57.44, forced open the doors of national selection for him for the five-match T20 series at home against New Zealand and the World T20 at home. It was a bold call from the selectors and the team management for whom Ishan had remained a persona non-grata for one and-a-half years, ostensibly on non-cricketing reasons.

 ‘’It’s important to have faith on yourself when you are passing through bad times and work hard. When I was playing domestic cricket, I made a conscious decision of not to just think about my comeback but taking the team along with me. As for the rest, I just decided to leave it to fate,’’ Ishan said in a jampacked, late night press conference after India won the World Cup final in Ahmedabad.

The IPL captaincy may be an unchartered territory for him, but coach Majumdar feels Ishan has a mature cricketing brain on his shoulders to be able to grow with the job. ‘’His record in domestic cricket shows his success rate as a captain in this format. While there is no comparison between the two stages but he has become a lot calmer and focused individual in the last two years – a quality that should help,’’ Majumdar pointed out.

Just for the record, Ishan had captained Jharkhand in 29 T20 matches, winning 24 and thrived with the bat too. His overall T20 batting average is 30.82 but as captain, the number swells to 43.12.