'Never once has it crossed my mind that I want his place' - Ishan Kishan on his friendship with Rishabh Pant

The most expensive player at the IPL 2022 mega auction, Ishan Kishan had shared his views on his ‘competitor’ Rishabh Pant for the wicketkeeper slot in the Indian limited-overs side. While Pant has proved his abilities at the highest level, Kishan is still in the grooming phase having played just 3 ODIs, and 8 T20Is at the international stage so far. He has scored a fifty in each of the two formats so far and got an extended run in the recent T20I series against West Indies.

Pant and Kishan have shared a great bond of friendship ever since the U19 World Cup in 2016 and it was the latter who captained the Indian side as well. They have opened together and India is lucky to have two left-handed wicketkeeper batters who can be equally destructive.

Rishabh Pant and me don’t even think we’re competing with each other: Ishan Kishan

Kishan mentioned that Pant is a very good friend of his and explained the number of conversations they have had with each other whenever they have met. He noted that he has been open to Pant always in sharing things and has never seen him as a competitor on the side as both have slightly different roles to play.

“Oh yes, he’s [Rishabh Pant] a very good friend. Whenever both of us are around, you’ll find us hanging out a lot with each other. We just keep watching movies whenever we find the time. We also talk a lot about cricket with each other about the game, what could’ve been done differently. I speak my mind with him, and he does the same. Never once has it crossed my mind that I want his place and I can assure you, that’s been the case with him too. And most importantly, when we are in the middle of our cricket routines, we don’t even think we’re competing with each other,”

Kishan added that it would be fun to have a competition with a player of Pant’s calibre and talked about his love for wicketkeeping as well. The 23-year-old did not have the best of times with the bat in the three innings against West Indies as he struggled to get his strike rate up.

“When you have good competition going with a talented player, there’s great fun to it too. You begin to realise those important things all by yourself-play good cricket and everything else will take care of itself. I love wicket-keeping so whenever an opportunity comes, I’ll try and give it my best,”