CHENNAI: About eight months ago, when R Sai Kishore came back from his two-match County stint with Surrey, momentum was with him. The Tamil Nadu all-rounder, after waiting for years, had played every IPL match last season for Gujarat Titans. He then came back to lead iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans to Tamil Nadu Premier League title before a successful short County stint with Surrey.
He was fit and in rhythm, gearing up for the Buchi Babu tournament and the domestic season. Then came the unfortunate injury where he broke his ring finger in the bowling arm while playing a TNCA league game. It put him out of action for three months. "It was unfortunate," recalled Titans all-rounder in a conversation with this daily.
Sai Kishore spent the better part of August, September and October trying to get fit and when he eventually made a comeback, the left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder was back on the field almost instantly. However, the rhythm did not return instantly. "I was clinically fit but to get that whole rhythm back it was December, It was challenging but it was nice. Because only when you experience low, you can feel the highs. When I was back in Ranji Trophy (second half) I got full rhythm back," he explained.
Through all this, his love for the sport and wanting to get back on the field kept him going. It helped that he had the support of doctors, physios at TNCA and Titans. By the time the IPL began, he was in full fitness and rhythm. It was expected that he would pick up from where he had left, but after six games, Sai Kishore is yet to play for the 2022 winners. While he understands that team combinations and conditions dictate the playing XI, the 29-year-old knows what it is like to wait for a chance. He was a part of Chennai Super Kings in 2020-21 and then moved to Titans in 2022, but only last year he started every match. Understandably, he knows his time will come when the pitches slow down through the course of the season. "All said and done, cricket is a team sport. We have a wonderful coach in Ashish Nehra who is honest and straightforward. When he takes a call, you trust him. That trust is there and with that you wait to work hard on your game, the weaknesses only you know. When you are back, you are in full force as if you never left. That is what I am trying to do. Right now conditions are not spinner-friendly and when someone does well it is not easy to change combinations. Slowly when pitches slow down during the summer, I will get a chance I feel," he reflected.
"When you come back from an injury, you want to get to where you were. You want to get to your top efficiency in terms of your body. The mind will always be there. I definitely worked on upping my game. And more than what I say, I think, it would be better if the performance was delivered. Because no matter how much you talk, the performance just speaks," the all-rounder added.
While the 29-year-old's love for spirituality and Tamil music is well established by now, one scroll through his social media indicates something interesting. A fair number of posts from last year have philosophical captions and audio from classic 1960-70s Tamil songs of MG Ramachandran and TM Soundararajan. "It started with my grandfather. He always wanted to be a singer, and used to sing the songs. And since childhood, I grew up with my grandparents. So, listening to them, I knew all these songs in my heart. I didn't understand it when I was young. But as I grew up, once you know the lyrics, you get attached to those songs," Sai Kishore said with a smile.
One such caption, from a famous MGR song, reads ‘Unnai Arinthal’ where the lyrics goes ‘if you understand yourself, you can fight the odds in this world. You can hold your head high through the highs and lows’. In the last year, Sai Kishore has spent time off the field doing just that. Now, when a chance arrives, he will be eager to roar.