Born and brought up in Patna, Ishan Kishan is a dashing wicket-keeper batter who has been earmarked as a future star for quite some time now. The enigmatic batter is a pure entertainer, known for his explosive batting style and skilful keeping. Throughout his career, Ishan Kishan has never needed a long runway to take off.

Despite consistent performances, Ishan has been ignored from the Indian set-up since 2023. Nonetheless, chose the 2025 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final to make a loud, timely statement with a remarkable century that turned the title clash between Jharkhand and Haryana into a one-sided finish. Thus, he forced his way back into the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup 2026.

Ishan Kishan’s Background and Early Career

Ishan Kishan was born on 18th July 1998 in Patna, Bihar. Recognising his prodigious talent, Ishan’s childhood coach asked his father to push him further in the sport.

Ishan started playing the sport when he was only 7 years old, alongside his elder brother, Raj. However, considering the uncertainty surrounding cricket as a profession, Ishan’s brother sacrificed his passion and let Ishan pursue his dream.

Interestingly, due to registration issues between the Bihar Cricket Association and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), he had to relocate to the neighbouring state of Jharkhand and started playing from there.

Ishan Kishan’s Domestic Career

In 2014, Kishan made his first-class debut and went on to score 451 runs from six matches. However, it was in the next season that he really made the headlines with a stunning 69-ball 87-run assault against a Saurashtra bowling attack that had the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Ravindra Jadeja. The knock was especially appreciated, as the surface at Rajkot was tricky.

Overall, he played only four matches in the 2015-16 Ranji Trophy season due to preparations for the U-19 World Cup in Bangladesh. With the junior India selectors identifying leadership skills in the keeper-batsman, Kishan was appointed as the captain for the India U-19 team. He led the side to a tri-series win against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh before going to the U-19 World Cup in early 2016. Although Kishan struggled with the bat throughout the tournament, he impressed with his captaincy as the side finished runners-up to the West Indies.

In the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy season, Kishan improved by leaps and bounds with 799 runs from 10 matches. This tally also included a career-best 273-run knock against Delhi. Since then, the southpaw has become a consistent run-scorer for Jharkhand in all formats.  

After finishing the 2017-18 Ranji season as the state’s leading scorer with 484 runs, Kishan produced two back-to-back superb campaigns in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the 2018-19 season, Kishan ended up with 405 runs from nine matches to top the batting charts for Jharkhand. The aggressive stroke-maker had a fantastic Syed Mushtaq Ali campaign in the same season, with 333 runs in eight matches at a strike-rate of 151.36.

Fast forward to the 2025-26 domestic season, Ishan Kishan captained Jharkhand and led the team to its first-ever Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title, defeating Haryana by 69 runs. Kishan scored a match-winning 101 runs off 49 balls. With this innings, Kishan became the first captain and the second player to score a century in a SMAT final. 

He also finished the tournament as the leading run-scorer, amassing 517 runs at an average of 57.44 and a strike rate of 197.32, and hit the most sixes in the competition (33).

Ishan Kishan followed it with a breathtaking knock in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26, smashing an incredible century off just 33 balls, the second-fastest List A hundred by an Indian.

Ishan Kishan’s IPL Career

In 2016, Ishan Kishan stepped into the Indian Premier League with 2 middling seasons with the Gujarat Lions. In 2018, the Bihar-born was bought by one of the biggest IPL franchises, the Mumbai Indians. He impressed with decent numbers, 275 runs at a strike rate of 150 in his first season with MI.

However, IPL 2020 proved to be the breakthrough season for Ishan Kishan. He scored a staggering 516 runs from 14 matches and won the award for hitting the most sixes during the season. Ishan’s most memorable knock was against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, where he scored 99 in 58 balls to help the team reach the super over in a high-scoring chase, though in a lost cause.

Proving his mettle with timely efforts, Kishan was bought back by MI in the IPL 2022 auction for a whopping INR 15.25 crore (equivalent to INR 16 crore or USD 1.9 million in 2023), making him the then-second-most expensive Indian player at the auction after Yuvraj Singh.

However, due to a slump in performance, he was again released by the Indians ahead of the IPL 2025 auction. Kishan was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Notably, Ishan Kishan scored his maiden IPL century in his first game for the SRH against the Rajasthan Royals in 2025.

Ishan Kishan’s International Career

Consistent performances for his domestic side, Jharkhand, made Kishan a regular for the India A side, and his valiant efforts in the IPL helped him earn a maiden India call-up.

Ishan Kishan made his T20I debut against England in 2021 and was named Player of the Match for his fifty. He became only the second Indian batter to smash a half-century on T20I debut.

In July 2021, he made his ODI debut, and, as in the T20I, he brought up his fifty while batting at No. 3 against Sri Lanka.

Kishan received a World Cup call-up in 2021 for the T20 version of the event that was held in the UAE. He played only one match, replacing Rohit Sharma as an opener. The move did not work, as the youngster scored only 4 runs in the must-win clash against New Zealand.

He was dropped from India’s squad for the T20 World Cup 2022.

In December 2022, Kishan fired a double-ton in an ODI against Bangladesh, joining the illustrious list that includes Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill as Indians. Kishan brought up this feat in just 126 balls, holding the record of the quickest double-century to date in the ODI format. 

In January 2023, the southpaw received his maiden Test call-up for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 but made his debut in the longest format six months later in the Caribbean. He made a quick-fire fifty in the second match of the series.

As Kishan struck a string of fifties, including the one in a rain-affected Asia Cup 2023 match versus Pakistan, he got selected for the ODI World Cup 2023 and featured in only two games in the tournament as Shubman Gill’s replacement.

After the World Cup, Kishan got back his T20I form, hitting two consecutive half-centuries in the Australia series. He then asked for a break and made himself unavailable for selection, citing mental fatigue.

Ishan Kishan’s BCCI Contract Termination to Road Back to Indian fold

Two months after taking a break, citing "personal reasons”, Ishan Kishan was stripped of his central contract, with the board warning top players not skip domestic cricket. It was startling because just a year earlier, Kishan had smashed the fastest double-century in ODI cricket history against Bangladesh, and with Rishabh Pant injured, he was the preferred wicketkeeper-batter in the white-ball formats.

For two years, Kishan was out in the wilderness, and it seemed the national selectors had moved past him. However, in 2025, on the back of a stellar Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT), Kishan returned to the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup 2026. 

(As of February 2026)