Sai Kishore says he came back too soon: three IPL 2026 matches, one wicket, and a final he could not finish
Tamil Nadu left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore has broken his silence on the strangest season of his career, telling The Times of India that he "shouldn't have done it" — that he pushed his comeback from finger surgery too hard, played only three matches for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2026, and felt short of his best rhythm by the time the franchise reached the final.
The interview and what he actually said
The interview, published on 3 August 2026, is the first time Sai Kishore has publicly addressed his IPL 2026 campaign in his own words. The headline remark — "I shouldn't have done it" — was not a complaint about Gujarat Titans' selection, and it was not a complaint about the franchise's medical team. It was a criticism of his own recovery timeline. Sai Kishore said he returned to competitive cricket too quickly after minor surgery on the ring finger of his bowling hand, and that the bowler Titans retained in mid-2025 was not the bowler who turned up for the 2026 season.
Three matches is a thin sample for any bowler. For Sai Kishore, who had been one of the franchise's most important bowlers in IPL 2025, it was almost invisible. Titans used him in only two of the three matches; he took one wicket. The team reached the final. He was not part of the eleven in the last two matches of the campaign. He has spent the weeks since the final rebuilding his rhythm through club cricket, and is now targeting the domestic season to find the form that made him a fixture of Titans' XI in 2024 and 2025.
From 19 wickets in 2025 to three matches in 2026
The contrast between Sai Kishore's two Gujarat Titans seasons is one of the most dramatic single-season shifts in IPL 2026. In 2025, he took 19 wickets and was one of the franchise's two or three most-trusted bowlers. He bowled in the powerplay, he bowled at the death, and he held his own in the middle overs against left- and right-handed batters. Fantasy owners picked him as a captaincy differential and as a banned-against-roster lock. The price was right, the role was stable, and the wickets came in clusters.
By the time IPL 2026 began, that profile had collapsed. The franchise had spent the off-season reinforcing its Indian spin reserves, and Sai Kishore could not get on the park. He played the first match, sat out the second, bowled in the third, and then watched from the dugout for the rest of the league stage. By the playoffs, another spinner had moved ahead of him in the franchise's plans. He finished the season with one wicket from the three matches.
That sequence is also the cleanest read on the surgery's cost. A bowler who returns to competition before the finger has fully healed loses two things: the kind of grip variation that makes left-arm spin hard to score off, and the confidence to flick the older variations at full pace. Sai Kishore said he was still regaining full fitness through the end of the Vijay Hazare competition, and that he believed he should have delayed his return.
The injury timeline, in his own words
The injury happened in a Chennai club match in August 2025. Sai Kishore told The Times of India he injured the ring finger on his bowling hand during a domestic fixture and underwent minor surgery in the weeks that followed. The procedure was straightforward; the recovery was not. He returned to the India domestic circuit on 1 November 2025, when he represented Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy fixture against Vidarbha. By the time the Vijay Hazare one-day competition began, he was still building match fitness, and he stayed in that build-up phase through the tournament.
Returning from a finger surgery on a bowling hand is a slow process for a spinner. The grip is the instrument. Small changes in finger pressure change the shape of the delivery, the trajectory, and the bounce. A spinner who cannot consistently grip the ball at full pace will lose the variations that set him apart from a part-time bowler. Sai Kishore said that the Vijay Hazare block was the period during which he should have continued working back to full fitness, rather than joining the Titans' IPL 2026 squad. He said he now believes the delay would have given him a clean season rather than a fragmented one.
Where he stands now: rebuilding through Tamil Nadu cricket
Sai Kishore's response to the truncated IPL 2026 is the same one most specialist bowlers in his situation choose: go back to the domestic grind and rebuild the rhythm match by match. He is playing Tamil Nadu's pre-season fixtures. He is bowling long spells in the nets. He is talking to the franchise's support staff about workload management, and he is being deliberately conservative about his return overs. The point is to arrive at the IPL 2027 auction with a body that has bowled fifty to seventy overs in the months before the auction, not a body that has bowled four overs in three months.
That is the cleanest read on where Sai Kishore stands at the time of writing. He is not injured. He is not in dispute with the franchise. He is not seeking a trade. He is doing the work that the IPL 2026 calendar did not allow him to do. The interview's framing — "I shouldn't have done it" — is the framing of a bowler who knows what he needs to do to come back, and is now doing it.
What it means for Gujarat Titans' IPL 2027 planning
The franchise's planning for IPL 2027 had to absorb Sai Kishore's truncated season and the rise of another spinner in the rotation. The reporting names Manav Suthar as the bowler who moved ahead of Sai Kishore in the franchise's plans during the period covered by the article. Suthar is a younger left-arm spinner from the same school of slow left-arm orthodoxy that Sai Kishore plays, and his development through the back half of IPL 2026 gave the franchise a workable alternative for the powerplay and middle overs.
For fantasy players, that planning matters in two ways. First, the Titans' spin pecking order for the start of IPL 2027 is not yet fixed. Sai Kishore is likely to be back in the auction conversation if he can produce a strong Vijay Hazare and a clean pre-IPL season, but a clean run is not a guarantee. Second, Suthar enters the IPL 2027 base price as a Titans spinner owned by less than 5 percent of public teams, and the bell-curve of his ownership will move with his first two or three wickets. Captaincy on Suthar is a known differential play; captaincy on a returning Sai Kishore is a punt on rhythm.
For readers who want to follow the wider Titans squad changes through the off-season, the IPL 2026 season preview on Fantafeat keeps a running tracker on each franchise's retention, trade and auction moves, including the spin-bowling depth chart that Sai Kishore's injury reshaped.
What fantasy teams should do with Sai Kishore in their planning
The practical question for fantasy players is whether Sai Kishore goes back into the auction pool at base price, and whether he is worth a Titans specialist slot. The historical Sai Kishore is a 19-wicket-a-season left-arm spinner with a powerplay and middle-overs role. The 2026 Sai Kishore is a one-wicket specialist who needs to rebuild his variations. The two profiles are not the same.
The disciplined move for fantasy players is to leave Sai Kishore out of early IPL 2027 draft teams and let the pre-season domestic form fill him in. A spinner who finishes the Vijay Hazare with fifteen wickets at an economy under six is a clean read. A spinner who finishes with eight wickets at an economy over seven is a punt. Until the domestic numbers arrive, Sai Kishore is a hold-and-watch name, not a draft-and-lock name.
There is also a Titans-specific angle. The franchise's spin profile for IPL 2027 will be decided by the auction and the retention list. If the franchise retains Sai Kishore and Suthar, the spin share will split between two left-arm spinners plus Rashid Khan. If the franchise releases Sai Kishore, the spin share will be Suthar and Rashid plus a new signing. Either way, the Titans' spin pecking order is a watch-list item, not a captaincy lock, until the retention list is published.
The wider lesson on bowling-hand injuries and comeback timing
Sai Kishore's interview is a useful data point on a recurring pattern in Indian cricket. Fast bowlers who come back too soon from back injuries usually lose pace. Spinners who come back too soon from finger injuries usually lose variations. The pattern is not unique to Sai Kishore; it is the standard cost of a clean recovery that gets compressed by an upcoming tournament. The lesson is not about Sai Kishore's choices specifically. It is about the cost of cramming rehabilitation into a six-week window.
The IPL 2026 calendar ran from late March to late May. The Vijay Hazare block ran from late November through February. Sai Kishore returned to Ranji cricket on 1 November 2025, played through the Vijay Hazare, and then joined the Titans' pre-season camp in mid-March. By the time the first IPL 2026 match happened, he had bowled roughly twenty competitive overs in five months. That is not enough for a finger-surgery spinner. The cost showed up in the three-match, one-wicket line.
For other spinners returning from finger surgery, the safer recovery timeline is closer to twelve weeks of full domestic cricket before a T20 league campaign. The IPL 2026 sample is consistent with that: Sai Kishore returned in sixteen weeks, and the result was a fragmented season. The lesson is not unique to him, but it is the lesson his interview most clearly carries.
What to watch next
Three concrete things are worth tracking between the interview and the IPL 2027 auction window. The first is Sai Kishore's Tamil Nadu form: wickets, economy, and the number of overs bowled across the Vijay Hazare block. The second is the Titans' retention list, which will say whether the franchise wants to keep him as a specialist or has moved on. The third is the Titans' pre-IPL 2027 spin signings, which will tell the market whether the franchise is rebuilding its spin depth or absorbing the current one.
For fantasy players, the simplest version of the watch-list is this: hold Sai Kishore in the watch-list, do not draft him in early IPL 2027 teams, and let the Vijay Hazare numbers and the retention list decide. The fancier version is to track the Titans' spin pecking order as a watch-list item of its own, on the assumption that the franchise's spin share is the variable that will move Sai Kishore's auction price the most.
Questions fantasy players are already asking
Did Sai Kishore play IPL 2026?
Yes. Sai Kishore played three matches for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2026, bowled in two of them, and took one wicket. The franchise reached the final; he was not part of the playing eleven in the last two matches of the campaign.
What injury kept Sai Kishore out of IPL 2026?
According to The Times of India, Sai Kishore injured the ring finger on his bowling hand in a Chennai club match in August 2025 and underwent minor surgery. He returned to the India domestic circuit on 1 November 2025 in the Ranji Trophy fixture against Vidarbha.
How many wickets did Sai Kishore take in IPL 2025?
Sai Kishore took 19 wickets for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2025, making him one of the franchise's most important bowlers. The 2026 collapse to three matches and one wicket is the statistical core of his interview.
Who replaced Sai Kishore in the Titans' IPL 2026 plans?
The reporting names Manav Suthar as the bowler who moved ahead of Sai Kishore in the Titans' plans during the period covered by the article. Suthar is a younger left-arm spinner who took on the powerplay and middle-overs role.
Should fantasy teams draft Sai Kishore for IPL 2027?
Not in early draft teams. Sai Kishore is a watch-list name until his Vijay Hazare form and the Titans' retention list confirm his role and fitness. He is a draft-and-lock name if those two signals line up.
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