Former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh has said that the way Ishan Kishan batted in the second T20I against New Zealand, it did not seem like the team was under pressure, adding that no one understood what he went through to become a match-winner like this.
Ishan was forced to walk in during the first over after Sanju Samson fell early to Matt Henry. Despite India slumping to 6/2 after 1.1 overs, he took control from the outset, dominating the bowlers through the powerplay.
Ishan smashed 11 boundaries and four sixes before falling to Ish Sodhi in the 10th over. At that stage, India were 128/3, with captain Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dube then seeing off the chase to bag a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
“Ishan Kishan said, ‘I am here’. The
way he batted, it didn’t seem like the team was under pressure at all. He isn’t a player who goes for singles or doubles; he just went flat out,” Harbhajan said while speaking on his YouTube channel.
“He (Ishan) has recently scored a lot of runs for Jharkhand. When he was dropped from the team two years ago, everyone was saying what is mental health and that he is doing all of this, but no one understood what he was feeling,” Harbhajan said.
Ishan earned a last-minute T20I call-up on the back of his exploits for Jharkhand in the 2025-26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, finishing as the tournament’s leading run-scorer while guiding the state to a historic title.
Before the ongoing home series against New Zealand, Ishan’s last international outing had come in December 2023. Over the past two years, he lost his place in the Test team amidst Dhruv Jurel’s rise and also slipped down the pecking order in the white-ball formats.
“The way he has played his cricket, winning the trophy for Jharkhand and now playing in that same fashion. It is a huge thing to make a comeback to international cricket in such a way,” Harbhajan said.
