No cricketer has drawn as many eyeballs off the field lately as Ishan Kishan. And it isn’t dying away anytime soon. The 25-year-old Ishan’s reluctance to go back to the drawing board and reinvent his game became further clear after he skipped the final round of Ranji Trophy matches that kicked off on Friday.

Is he unfit? Not one bit. Is he underperforming at bigger stages? Yes. Is he making a provision to return to India’s Test squad? Apparently not. In fact, it is learnt that the left-hander is girding his loins for a comeback to competitive cricket for his employers’ Reserve Bank of India in the upcoming DY Patil T20 tournament. All for the sake of the glitzy and commercially lucrative Indian Premier League that is scheduled to begin in the last week of March.