Ishan Kishan has explained his decision to take a break from international cricket and skip domestic matches. The India wicketkeeper-batsman last played for India in the third T20I of a five-match series against Australia in November last year. He was named for the subsequent South Africa tour but opted out of the Test series due to personal reasons. After a short break, Kishan also decided to miss Ranji Trophy matches, leading the BCCI to remove him from the central contracts list.
Rahul Dravid, the head coach of India at that time, advised that Kishan needed to perform in domestic matches to make a comeback. Despite facing criticism for skipping domestic matches, Kishan revealed he wasn’t in the right mental state to play Ranji Trophy games.
“I took a break, which I think was normal. There’s a rule that if you want to make a comeback, you must perform in domestic cricket. However, playing domestic cricket didn’t make sense to me at that time as I was not in the right frame of mind. That’s why I took a break from international cricket. It doesn’t make sense to take a break from international cricket and then play domestic matches. Otherwise, I could have just continued playing for India,” Kishan told the Indian Express.
Kishan admitted he was disappointed with not getting enough playing time for the Indian team despite performing well.
“It was depressing. It wasn’t easy for me at all. You go through a lot of thoughts like ‘what happened,’ ‘why me.’ All these thoughts were running through my mind when I was performing,” he added.
After skipping the South Africa tour and Ranji Trophy, Kishan returned to action during the Indian Premier League earlier this year. However, he scored only 320 runs from 14 innings at an average of 22.85 and a strike rate of 148.83.
Consequently, he was not considered for T20 World Cup selection, with Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson being chosen as the two wicketkeepers instead.
