How Ishan Kishan fought personal grief to rise on the biggest night of his career

TimesofIndia.com in Ahmedabad: On Saturday evening, Rajkumar Sharma was watching his son, Abhishek Sharma, train at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Pranav Pandey, father of Ishan Kishan, had similar plans too, but instead of being in Ahmedabad to watch his son train and later smash a sparkling 25-ball 54 while taking three catches in the field, he was sitting in a morgue in Siliguri.

On Friday, just when Pranav Pandey was on his way to the Patna Airport to catch his flight to Ahmedabad, he received the wretched news of a car accident that took the lives of two of his relatives. The young family was on their way to attend a wedding.




"Anarth ho gaya. Hum log bahut badi musibat mein hain (Something terrible has happened. We are in a very big problem)," he told TimesofIndia.com on the eve of the match.

In the accident, Ishan lost his cousin sister and brother-in-law. Miraculously, the couple's two children -- aged six months three years old -- survived.

"We are all in shock. Ishan wanted to visit us, but he couldn't return because of the final. He is absolutely distraught," said Pranav Pandey.

When Ishan Kishan scored his third half-century of the T20 World Cup, he gave the customary bat raise towards the dressing room but also took a moment to point towards the heavens. He does not do it often.

Later in the post-match press conference, Ishan said: “I lost my cousin sister yesterday in a road accident and she always wanted me to score big runs. This is for her. I got to know about it yesterday and was very disturbed.”

Even on the eve of the match, Kishan was not his usual chirpy self when the rest of his teammates trained under the ring of fire. The batting hit was not the usual long one and even during fielding drills with coach T Dilip, he was not the Ishan who usually brought life to the team's training sessions.

However, the work continued. He took catches from different angles and from various parts of the ground to get used to the ring of fire. The session paid off as he took a stunning catch off Jasprit Bumrah's bowling to send Rachin Ravindra back to the hut and later juggled the ball near the ropes to dismiss Tim Seifert. Daryl Mitchell followed soon after.

Throughout the session, different teammates came and put their arms around his shoulders, trying to lighten the mood for the youngster who had just lost a close family member.

There were regular cries of "Ishan bhaiya autograph" and his attempts to deflect the requests by raising his hand while keeping his back to the little ones were unsuccessful. They only grew more restless and Ishan eventually walked to the sightscreen near the home dugout to sign blank papers and pose for selfies.

"Baccho ko dene do," he would politely request the others who were using their reach to tower over the kids, ensuring no child left without the memory they wanted to create with the wicketkeeper-batter.

A boy full of life was struggling to hold himself together on the eve of the biggest night of his career but still stood out, first with the bat and then in the field, to win his first ICC title.

His sister would have hoped for nothing but this. Unfortunately, he would not be able to celebrate the biggest moment of his career with one of his biggest cheerleaders.

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