​NEW DELHI: Prabhsimran Singh was midway through a gym session when the long-awaited call finally came. After carving out a steady run with Punjab Kings, the opener earned his first India selection for the three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe later this month. Yet before sharing the news with anyone else, Prabhsimran rushed home with a purpose.
There, waiting for him was his father, Sardar Surjit Singh, who is fighting serious health problems and undergoes regular dialysis. Despite his condition, he rarely misses watching his son play. When Prabhsimran told him he had been picked for India, emotion swept him up. “Kaafi time ke baad aaya hai paaji. Hum sab wait kar rahe the. Waheguru da shukar hai,” Prabhsimran told TimesofIndia.com in an exclusive interview, describing how elation met relief.
“Papa ki tabiyat aisi hai ki woh khud se uth nahi paate. But when we told him the news, he managed to rise on his own.” If this moment of joy can even slightly improve his father’s health, Prabhsimran believes it would mean the world to him. His father kept urging him to stay focused, saying, “Ab ja raha hai to neeche nahi aana,” while adding a single plea: “Aur mehnat karo.”
Prabhsimran’s journey through cricket has been one of patience and perseverance. After years of struggling to secure consistent opportunities in his early IPL seasons, his breakthrough arrived in 2023 when he amassed 358 runs, including his maiden IPL century. He followed that with 334 runs in 2024, then elevated his performances to back-to-back 500-plus seasons in 2025 and 2026. More importantly, he began converting starts into big scores, progressing from a lone fifty and a century in 2023 to four fifties in 2025 and six fifties in IPL 2026.
“I had been waiting for this for a long time because earlier I didn’t get enough opportunities to play. Once I started getting proper chances, I just tried to give my best, and things went well. I have had two good seasons in a row. So somewhere, I did have the hope that I would get an opportunity on one of the tours. But I wasn’t thinking too much about it because my mindset has always been the same—whether it’s a district club match or an IPL game, I just want to perform well. The IPL is such a big stage. If you do well there, everything gets noticed. I’m grateful that I’ve got this opportunity. I just pray that things go well there too,” Prabhsimran said.
His resolve strengthened further after back-to-back 500-plus IPL seasons with India A in Sri Lanka, where he scored 97 runs in three matches, including a half-century. Now, he has been chosen as India’s second wicketkeeper-batter behind Ishan Kishan, with Sanju Samson’s omission coming as a surprise. One of the most notable improvements in Prabhsimran’s game has been his consistency. While his aggressive approach at the top remains intact, he has learned to refine his shot choice and tempo over the last few seasons, translating early starts into substantial scores. His growth signals a well-rounded evolution: aggression married to steadiness, the ability to accelerate when needed, and the temperament to seize opportunities on big stages.
As Prabhsimran prepares for international duty, he remains grounded in the reality of his father’s health and the simple motivation of making his family proud. The call to represent India is not just a personal milestone but a testament to perseverance, support, and the belief that talent, when nurtured with patience and hard work, can rise to the highest levels of the sport.