Tough times don’t last. But tough people do, with a little help from team-mates. That’s how Ishan Kishan and Abhishek Sharma reflected on their personal journeys after winning their maiden World Cup titles for India in Ahmedabad.
For Abhishek, the three ducks at the start of the tournament alongside a lean run during the World Cup had made him doubt his own game, and it needed his “family” of team-mates to instil confidence back into him even when he couldn’t find any himself. In Kishan’s case, it was a culmination of all the hard work he did in the background after he was sidelined from the India set up not so long back.
“When I was not making runs, everyone in the team was wanting me to get among the runs again,” Abhishek said after scoring the tournament’s fastest fifty, in 18 balls, in the final against New Zealand. “In that sense, the company around you matters a lot. When I wasn’t able to contribute, everyone was saying ‘you’ll do it.’ I was struggling with self-doubt, but it was the players, coaches and support staff that had belief in me.”
“No matter how bad your time is, you have to firstly trust yourself,” Kishan added, jokingly telling Abhishek that his own struggles have been for far longer. “If you’re doubting yourself, then you can’t express yourself on the field. But I also feel that when you’re working hard and helping others during their bad times, then it all comes back to you as well at a later time.
“When I had to go back to the domestic set-up, I did focus on myself but I decided that we need to move forward as a team since success is not for an individual in a team sport. Embracing the team environment in domestic cricket and later again with the national team taught me that you can pick up the good, small habits from your team-mates. And like Abhishek said, the company around you is very important. You don’t need negative people because then their negative thoughts hover around your own mind.”
While Abhishek revealed that he scored his half-century with Shivam Dube’s bat and wanted to give the allrounder some second-hand credit in jest, Kishan told the media that his own fifty in 23 balls was extra special because he was batting amid a personal crisis, the loss of his cousin sister just a day before the final.
“It means a lot to me,” Kishan said about his fifty from No. 3. “More than myself, my family members are much more relaxed now. As sportsmen, we can take care of ourselves in our difficult phases but it’s out family members who remain worried.
“I was not planning to say this, but I lost my cousin sister yesterday in a car accident. I got to know during the practice session. She always wanted me to score big runs. But today was a big day, rather than keeping my emotions, I just thought, ‘the best thing I can do is I can score runs for her’, and that’s why I looked up after scoring my fifty. It was for my sister, her family and my very close friends.
“I was not feeling well mentally before the final, but I spoke to Hardik bhai. He said it won’t be easy, but he reminded me it’s a team sport so we need to lift each other up for the team’s cause. I had that anger inside me in the final to perform.”
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Kishan also said the time away had allowed him to understand that selection is not in a player’s hands and therefore their energies should be on how one can improve. That’s one thing he learnt while observing Virat Kohli, Kishan said. He also said that he was most delighted to repay the faith that Suryakumar Yadav, the T20I captain, put in him.
“When Suryakumar called me few months back to tell me about my selection in the World Cup squad, he asked me, ‘can you win the World Cup for me?’, Kishan said. “I just asked him back, ‘will you trust me?’ and he said ‘yes, I will trust you.’
“What I saw in this team when I came was that, yes, there was pressure, but there was no fear as a result of that pressure. There was confidence instead. That’s why coming to Ahmedabad again [after losing the 2023 ODI World Cup final], the team did not feel burdened by history. Everyone was working hard on an individual level and the team morale was very good, something I credit the head coach and captain for achieving. The biggest example, again, was how they dealt with Abhishek. They never doubted him and never let his lean form off the field affect how he was viewed inside the team environment.
That was the atmosphere through this World Cup in the camp. There was a lot of happiness.”
