Being no longer with the star-studded Mumbai Indians (MI) has helped Ishan Kishan grow into the player he is today, feels Ambati Rayudu. Kishan, who is having his best IPL season, was with MI for seven years before Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) bought him at the 2025 auction.

Rayudu himself played for MI from 2009 to 2017 but says it was easier for him as he never bothered about stardom. “But for someone like him [Kishan],” Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo Time Out, “growing up in a franchise like Mumbai, he wants to be a superstar – he is a superstar in his own right now – but back then to compete against all the stars around him would have been very, very tough.

“Those guys know when to switch on in terms of their game, when to come back. But a lot of these young boys don’t know how to switch off and how to switch on. That’s a big challenge and I’m sure he has learnt and he has learnt it the hard way.”

Kishan is currently fifth on the IPL 2026 Orange Cap list. In 14 games so far, he has 569 runs at an average of 40.64 and a strike rate of 178.36. His 79 off 46 balls against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Friday, which won him the Player-of-the-Match award, was his sixth 50-plus score of the season. Before this, he had never had more than three such scores in an IPL season.

“His shot selection has improved big time,” Rayudu said. “In his initial years, we have seen him make some wrong decisions in terms of shot selection. But here we saw him making the right call most of the time.

“I think his captaincy for Jharkhand made him realise a lot of things about his own game as well. Sometimes when you get captaincy, people transform into better batsmen and he is one of them who has massively improved in terms of clarity.”