Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Ahead of the IPL 2026 season, the two captains – Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Ishan Kishan and Gujarat Titans’ Shubman Gill – were seen engaging in playful, light-hearted banter. The video, where the duo pulled each other’s leg, was widely loved by fans on social media.Regular skipper Pat Cummins will miss the early stages of IPL 2026 due to a back injury, and in his absence, Ishan will lead SRH.In the video, Shubman and Ishan are seen teasing each other.
Gill first mocked Ishan by calling him a “half captain,” to which the SRH player replied that he would respond later.When Gill was asked to give advice to Ishan, the GT captain said that he does not “give advice to half captains.”Ishan responded by saying that he does not take advice from anyone and that he is “a champion in himself.”The light-hearted banter between the two friends didn’t stop there.Ishan said that Shubman Gill would not perform too well this season.In response, Gill asked Ishan when Hyderabad last won the title. Kishan countered by asking how many stars were on Gill’s jersey. When Gill repeated the question about SRH’s last title win, both friends laughed and said, “Jab ghar kachhey they, dil sachhey they.”Shubman then delivered a punchline, joking about Ishan and saying, “He wants to get into the ODI and Test teams.”The Indian Premier League 2026 is set to begin on Saturday, with the tournament’s opening match to be played between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad.‘Ishan is a confident player’Head coach Daniel Vettori said that the Sunrisers Hyderabad team management had little hesitation in handing over the stand-in captaincy to Ishan Kishan, as he has proven to be a “confident player and leader.”“I think Ishan’s been around in the IPL for a long period of time now. He’s been with a number of teams and he’s been highly successful, so, he brings in his own confidence around that,” Vettori said at the pre-match press meet here on Friday.“The fact that he’s led the U19s and his state team and they won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy this year brings a confident person, a confident player and a really confident leader and those are the attributes that we really looked at when he was appointed.“His combination with Abhishek, they’re good friends, they know the team exceptionally well and I really feel like those two will lead from the front this season,” he added.Also See: RCB vs SRH Live Score
