Ishan Kishan credits his success to the time spent with MS Dhoni in the Jharkhand dressing room

India’s U19 World Cup 2016 skipper Ishan Kishan stated that he has learned a lot from the former Indian captain MS Dhoni when he was a part of the Jharkhand dressing room this season and also led them in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He further mentioned that he was looking forward to his new role opening the batting for the Gujarat Lions

Kishan has been the find of the tournament this season for the Lions along with Andrew Tye. He is the leading contender for the emerging player’s award along with the likes of Rahul Tripathi, Rishabh Pant, Nitish Rana and Basil Thampi.

Earlier in the tournament Ishan was sent lower down the order due to the packed lineup of the Lions. Gujarat possesses a lot of firepower at the top with the likes of McCullum, Raina, Finch, Roy, Smith and Karthik. But the 18-year-old has managed to impress the think tank of the Lion with his cameos down the order.

He was later promoted up the order and has stitched vital partnership since, with McCullum and co. to put his team in a comfortable position early in the match.

“I have to make most of this big opportunity. The team combination was such that I was batting lower down the order. But, I never thought that it is not my slot. I wanted to perform in whatever role was assigned to me. Now, opening the innings with someone like Brendon McCullum is a big thing for a youngster like me” said the 18-year-old to India today.

The teenager from Jharkhand commented that MS Dhoni played a key role in guiding him during the crunch situations of the IPL. He implemented the advice professed by the veteran of Indian cricketer helped the left-hander.

“When you have someone like MSD in your dressing room, there is no need to ask for anything else. I got to learn so much from him while playing for Jharkhand this season. Batting alongside in the nets, he used to tell us about all aspects of the game. It helped me a lot while batting in a pressure situation during the IPL with more than 40,000 people present in the stadium” mentioned the Southpaw.

“What he (Dhoni) stresses most on is about maintaining a good fitness level. He told me that if you are not working on your fitness then it will eventually affect your game a lot. I used to always concentrate only on batting and bowling earlier.” he added.

“If you look at our team’s showing this season, Jharkhand did well in every format. It was all due to the superb fitness level maintained by the players. We were putting the same kind of effort in our eighth Ranji game as we had put in the very first one” praised the man born in Patna.

Yet again, Ishan would play a key role during today’s match against Delhi Daredevils. Both the teams need to win all their games to entertain the thoughts of getting into the playoffs.