‘I’m not a guy who is playing the sport expecting something’: Sai Kishore

R Sai Kishore likes to go with the flow. “I break the timber with the red-ball,” reads the bio on his Twitter, the sort of phrase you mostly hear from fast bowlers rather than a left-arm spinner. When on the field, it is hard to find someone as intense and competitive as the lanky left-arm spinner. Having played a key part in Tamil Nadu’s white-ball domination, he was elevated to captaincy in the Ranji Trophy last season and is now part of South Zone Duleep Trophy and Deodhar Trophy squads.
Besides, the 26-year-old is in the national radar. It is the sort of phase that often leads India hopefuls to put extra pressure on themselves. But not Sai Kishore. If anything, he sounds totally oblivious to everything happening around him. “I’m not the sort of a guy who is playing the sport expecting something. Personally when I do that, you are not enjoying yourself. This is a sport I picked up as a kid because I loved it and it will remain that way. Whichever team I get to play, I should do my duty and give my 100 per cent. Spinners have loads to learn in this sport skill-wise and that is what I should be doing, rather than concentrating on which team I’m playing. Wherever it is, you have to be yourself,” Sai Kishore tells The Indian Express.
He idolises R Ashwin, yet he picked a spat with him in his first season of Tamil Nadu Premier League. But he is a different personality off the field. An avid reader, who carries at least a couple of books with him, he prefers burying his head in books on hory, philosophy and about life. On a typical monsoon day in Bengaluru on Wednesday, where South Zone is taking on West Zone in the final at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, he was reading one written Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. When he is not reading, he loves strumming his guitar and at times playing the drums too, “Not because I’m good at it, but I love doing it. It might definitely be unbearable for someone, but I can’t be thinking about it as it gives me the sort of joy I like.” He will quietly go for a trek and meditate for hours in the company of monks.

Leaner, dreamer
Sai Kishore who has an MBA degree to his name, is a studious and cricket nut like Ashwin. At one point, he even had the same jersey number as the off-spinner and loves watching cricket, irrespective of who is playing. “I’m a firm believer that when you have your eyes and ears open, you can learn a lot. When I’m playing at this level for six years, it means I definitely have the basics. From here it is about that extra one percent that makes all the difference. So you have to evolve and the only way to do is learning.`
Sai Kishore who has an MBA degree to his name, is a studious and cricket nut like Ashwin.
A studious player, he knows what it is to be part of the Indian team. During 2021, he was part of the Shikhar Dhawan-led white-ball team to Sri Lanka and the home series against the West Indies as a back-up player. A rare spinner who relishes bowling in the powerplay as well as at the death, he has been an integral part of Tamil Nadu’s red-ball side too. A handy batsman, who even bats No 3 in Ranji Trophy, he is a quintessential player of the times. Another good season in white-ball would put him in the India mix, but Sai Kishore isn’t having any of it. “I honestly don’t think about anything because I have seen what it does to players. It sort of weighs over them at some point and it starts affecting the performance. And there is more to life than just cricket and you can’t be bogged down with selection calls because at the end of the day, I can still get to play cricket at some level,” he says.
Despite being a proven match-winner in T20s, Sai Kishore has only played 5 matches in the IPL and spent the entirety of this season warming the bench for Gujarat Titans. Initially supposed to feature prominently in their campaign, the injury to Kane Williamson meant Noor Ahmad got a look-in and Sai Kishore, despite proving his mettle in Gujarat’s title-winning campaign in 2022, ended up without a game. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t down. But I also know where it came from because it was completely down to the circumstances and getting the balance is very tough. So I totally understood where it came from and it was not the moment to sulk. Like I said, there is more to life and at the end of the day, it is just a sport and you have to take it as one. I was getting paid and I’d some of the best names around me to learn. Why would anyone think about what they missed and end up missing what is in front of you,” Sai Kishore adds.

South dig their own grave
Put into bat first, South Zone ended Day 1 of the Duleep Trophy final against West Zone at 182/7. On a good pitch, South’s batsmen were guilty of throwing away their wickets, especially to the seamers who mostly operated in the 115-12 8kph range. Hanuma Vihari top-scored with 63, before losing his wicket to Shams Mulani.