‘Your name is not MS Dhoni’: Ex-India batter bewildered at Ishan Kishan’s in-sync reaction to on-air comment

Ishan Kishan, who has been in fantastic form in the ongoing West Indies tour, registering four consecutive half-centuries in Tests and ODIs, encountered a rare failure in the first T20I.

Kishan was caught at mid-on for six while trying to hit left-arm medium pacer Obed McCoy over the top. Apart from his dazzling strokeplay at the top of the order, Kishan has also caught the attention of fans with his hilarious comments caught on the stump mic during the ODI and Test series. One of those moments came during the third ODI, albeit accidentally when former India opener Aakash Chopra compared his keeping with the legendary MS Dhoni.

During the West Indies innings in the ODI series decider, Kisan had attempted a stumping of a West Indian batter, but his quick attempt wasn’t enough to give India a wicket as the batter had his foot grounded before the bails were flicked off.

JioCinema’s panel of Hindi commentators were discussing the attempt, during which Aakash Chopra shared a light-hearted comment. Aakash referred to Dhoni and Kishan’s Ranchi connection and said the youngster is not as quick while keeping to the spinners as Dhoni was. “I can see his foot on the ground. See, you might be from Ranchi, Ishan, but your name isn’t Mahendra Singh Dhoni,” Aakash said.

Following that, the stump mic caught a comment from Kishan behind the wickets that was made in perfect sync with the former India cricketer’s comment. In a moment that had Chopra’s co-commentators, RP Singh and Nikhil Chopra, in raptures, Kishan ‘replied’ by saying “Haan, phir theek hai (yes, then it is okay).”

RP Singh and Nikhil Chopra burst into laughter at the rare coincidence. Aakash, for his part, took the entire episode in the right spirit. “Ishan responded as well, look. How sweet, Ishan! We love you,” said the former Indian opener, while his fellow commentators continued to chuckle alongside.

Aakash later shared a clip of the incident on Twitter.

Kishan emerged as the top-run scorer in the three-match ODI series but was unable to translate his half-centuries into bigger scores. He will be looking to shrug off the disappointments of the first T20I and comeback strongly in the remaining four matches to stake a claim to India’s Asia Cup and World Cup squads.

As it stands, he is the frontrunner to grab the backup opener’s spot and if KL Rahul doesn’t regain his fitness in time, Kishan could well be the first-choice keeper for India in the Asia Cup. But the interesting thing will be his batting order. He has rarely found success while batting in the middle-order and if he plays the Asia Cup, will that mean India will ask Shubman Gill to slide down and give Kishan the opportunity to open with captain Rohit Sharma?