The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has shared a behind-the-scenes look of East Zone captain Ishan Kishan’s exciting speech in the pre-Duleep Trophy final team huddle. The Jharkhand wicketkeeper-batter is heard telling his teammates that they weren’t in Chepauk to ‘just participate’ and urging them to put their ‘stamp on this game’ against South Zone.
That’s exactly what they did on Sunday, led by the skipper’s unbeaten 111 off 135 balls. Domestic veteran Abhimanyu Easwaran (72) and prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (44) strung together like Yin and Yang for a 100-run partnership, before 21-year-old Shikhar Mohan impressed with an 85. Kishan and another wicketkeeper, Kumar Kushagra (63*), ended the day with the team at 385/4.
“Guys, I
think just character-wise, we’ve played really good cricket so far,” Kishan said in the huddle. “Two matches are done. We’ve played very good cricket, and I think this is the last match – and as a team, it’s my request that, yaar, we have to put our stamp on this game. Like, it’s the final game, but we aren’t here to just participate – we are here to win. But I feel like we’ll have to show a bit of character out there. It’s going to be very hot, there are going to be a lot of factors in the match – it’s a five-day game – so let’s just make sure we keep that same character, keep the energy. We have to back our bowlers, support them as much as we possibly can – and I’m talking about the fielding units as well.”
Captaincy seems to be bringing out the best in Kishan, who not too long ago led Jharkhand to their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. The speech gave an insight into just how he does it.
“So let’s do all the right things, and not care about the result right from the start,” he said. “Let’s just do all the right things and see how it goes.”
