When you produce an innings that comfortably overshadows not just one, but two typically swashbuckling Rishabh Pant centuries, it has to be inevitable that the world will take notice.

Nowadays, India’s Pant is well-known as one of the most destructive red-ball batters on the planet, and in November 2016, aged only 19, he gave an early indication of his ballistic ability.

In a Ranji Trophy match between his Delhi side and Jharkhand, Pant hammered 117 from 106 balls in the first innings, and an even-more stellar 135 from 67 in the second.

Yet, over those four days in Thumba, on the west coast of India’s southern tip, his efforts were comprehensively outclassed by Jharkhand’s 18-year-old number six, himself only four months into adulthood.

His name? Ishan Kishan. His accomplishment? Hitting 273, still the highest score in Jharkhand’s First-Class history.

Ishan, now 26, now captains the side in the Ranji Trophy, India’s top-level domestic First-Class competition, and has debuted for his country in all three international formats.

He will now expand his horizons even further by joining Nottinghamshire on a two-match Rothesay County Championship deal.

Throughout Ishan’s career, though, the colour of the ball has hardly tended to matter; if it has been in his arc, he will send it disappearing into the stands, whatever the format.

A little over a year before writing his name into Jharkhand’s history books, he faced down the great Ravindra Jadeja, collector of 323 Test wickets, in another Ranji Trophy game against Saurashtra.

Opening the batting in a game that saw the first spin bowled in just the fifth over - an indication of how conducive the Rajkot surface was to turn - Ishan hammered 87 from just 69 balls, including eight sixes.

Although Saurashtra did go on to win the game - which concluded inside two days - by eight wickets, with Jadeja claiming match figures of 13/126 in a Player of the Match performance, the then-17-year-old Ishan had stood up to be counted.

International recognition did not take long to follow, as three months later, he was named as India captain for the Under-19 World Cup in neighbouring Bangladesh, guiding his side to the final.

It has been curious how many of Ishan’s seminal career moments have also seen the involvement of Pant; he too was in that World Cup squad as a teenage batter/keeper.

Later in 2016, once Ishan had attained adulthood, the duo faced off in the aforementioned Ranji Trophy match, trading centuries to total 525 runs between them.

Perhaps the most notable cricketing moment for Ishan that also involved Pant, though, came about through near-tragic circumstances.

Pant was elevated to the India Test team in 2018 - making his debut at Trent Bridge, no less - and in parallel, established himself as first-choice for his country behind the stumps.

However, when he was badly injured in a horror car crash in late 2022 - thankfully, a full recovery has followed - a deputy was required to take the Test gloves.

For a two-match tour to the West Indies in July 2023, the BCCI turned to Ishan, who had shone in the interim years with his full debuts for his country in ODI and IT20 cricket.

The latter came first, as he hit an unbeaten 56 in 32 balls, sharing in a 94-run partnership with none other than Virat Kohli to guide India to a seven-wicket win at home over England.

Five months later, Ishan made his ODI bow against Sri Lanka, and matched his IT20 feat of a debut fifty, striking 59 from 42 to again see India to a seven-wicket victory.

His most standout moment in India blue, though, was the earth-shattering 210 he struck as an opener in an ODI away to Bangladesh.

As he again shared in a big partnership with Kohli, though this one numbering a considerably more enormous 290, Ishan faced 131 balls, sending 24 of them for four and ten more for six.

India piled up 409-8, before gently dismissing their hosts and neighbours for 182 in Chittagong to confirm a crushing 227-run win.

That was the culmination of a purple patch which convinced the Indian selectors to reward Ishan with a Test bow seven months later.

Just as in the two other international formats, Ishan wasted little time in finding his feet in the longest format, as he belted 52 from just 34 balls in the second Test of the series in Trinidad.

He may have been all over the world with India, but this will be hist first stint in county cricket, and if he is able to replicate what he has done thus far, the Green and Gold faithful are in for a treat.

The boy from Bihar, who came of age in the Ranji Trophy and made his name on the international scene in white-ball cricket, now has the chance to earn the appreciation of English crowds too.

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