“When We Could not Retain Him…”: Hardik Pandya Breaks Silence On Ishan Kishan’s Exit

A member of the Mumbai Indians staff since 2018, Ishan Kishan was offered to Sunrisers Hyderabad within the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 public sale. The wicket-keeper batter was launched by the Mumbai Indians forward of the 2-day public sale, with the franchise deciding to maintain Tilak Varma as an alternative. Mumbai did bid for him within the public sale, however did not transcend INR 3.20 crore mark. Now, MI skipper Hardik Pandya has opened up on his departure.

Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad engaged in an intense bidding struggle for the participant, earlier than the latter roped him in for a charge of INR 11.25 crore. With Ishan’s exit, MI misplaced an enormous a part of its core, a participant who had been with the aspect for 7 years.

Hardik, in a video shared by the franchise on social media, admitted that the bosses knew getting Ishan again can be powerful from the public sale.

“Ishan has been the ‘freshness’ and the ‘vitality’ of the room. After we could not retain him, we all the time knew that it is gonna be very tough to get him again from the public sale just because we knew that, the type of participant and type of skillset he brings. He all the time was once maintain the dressing room mild, has made lots of people smile,” Hardik mentioned within the video.

href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/MumbaiMeriJaan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrcpercent5Etfw”>#MumbaiMeriJaan #MumbaiIndians | @ishankishan51 pic.twitter.com/K1Gz5DKYUU

— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) December 1, 2024

“That love and heat, it got here very pure to him and there shall be much less cake smashing, much less pranks occurring on folks. That was Ishan and who used to deliver a lot like to this staff, that’s one thing as a gaggle we’re going to miss. Ishan Kishan, you all the time be MI’s pocket-dynamo. All of us gonna miss you and all of us love you,” he added.

Ishan was purchased by MI for a whopping charge of INR 15.25 crore within the IPL 2022 season and was retained within the 2023 and the 2024 campaigns. Nevertheless, a string of poor performances noticed him being launched forward of the 2025 public sale.

With SRH, nevertheless, Ishan has discovered one other franchise that’s being touted among the many most interesting within the league, at the least on paper.