Ishant 2.0: Sharper, stronger, smarter
Bharat sundaresan
Bangalore
It’s not that Ishant Sharma has ever been hard to notice. He’s always been the tallest member of the Indian team. He also has the eye-catching long mane.
But the same couldn’t be said always about Ishant Sharma the fast bowler. He was the guy who laboured in all day long in lengthy spells doing the dirty-work, keeping things tight, trying to create pressure. Wickets would be hard to come and he would be called unlucky.
But there’s something different about Ishant these days. He no longer wears his hair down, they are are tied neatly in a samurai ponytail. He also has serious muscle occupying his upper torso.
Almost dramatically, the 27-year-old has morphed into the team’s bowling spearhead.
You can see his new-found confidence in his run-up. He no longer lumbers up to the crease. He’s striding in with intent and an air of ‘I know what I’m doing’, almost like he’s finally comfortable being in his own skin.
And it’s not surprising that 4 of his 7 five-wicket hauls have come in this period nor the fact that Virat Kohli & Co seem overjoyed with the fact that he’s available for the second Test in Bangalore, after serving a one-match suspension for an unprecedented disciplinary incident in Colombo.
It wasn’t just the fact that he was taking wickets, but in Sri Lanka — where he ended up with 13 wickets at 23.23 including a match-winning eight-wicket haul at SSC — he was doing what Zaheer Khan used to at his peak. He was providing wickets when his team needed hem the most — like when he ran through their middle-order at the SSC. If not taking wickets, he would create pressure at his end to ensure that R Ashwin and Amit Mishra could benefit at the other end. He was being the leader, and not only when he had the ball in his hand. And like his 7/74 at Lord’s last year or his 5/54 at SSC two months ago, he’s also rapidly turning into the fast bowling match-winner that India have yearned for ever since Zaheer faded away.
Unlike batsmen, it’s not fair to judge bowlers solely on their numbers. But that’s the way it is. And if you went purely by Ishant’s statistics, you won’t be surprised about why he’s incessantly at the receiving end of widespread criticism. Two-hundred wickets at 36.51 in 65 Tests do not make for great reading. But they do not always give away the real picture either or tell you about the many impactful spells — be it Johannesburg 2013 or Trent Bridge 2011—that he’s delivered for India.
Chinnaswamy will not see R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja come into their own as early as they did in Mohali and it will be up to Ishant to give India the early breakthroughs with the new-ball, which they have kind of come to expect from him of late.
“I’m very delighted that Ishant is back. The way he is bowling and the way he bowled in Sri Lanka brings a lot to the table. It is not just about the spinners. He’s bowled well in sub-continent conditions, knows how to reverse swing the ball, can lead the pace attack,” said Kohli.
The role Ishant has played for India in the long-run hasn’t been too dissimilar to what Morne Morkel brings to the table for South Africa. For the record, Morkel has six five-wicket hauls in 64 Tests, one less than Ishant. He’s the guy who uses his height and the natural bounce that comes with it to push batsmen back and keep them in check.
But while Morkel has had the luxury of bowling alongside the likes of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander for a majority of his career, apart from Zaheer Khan at his peak, Ishant has pretty much had to shoulder the burden of the Indian attack with often little support from the other end. As a result, he’s also had to play multiple roles, from choker to executioner. But rarely are Ishant and Morkel taken in the same breath when there’s talk about the best fast bowlers in the world. And it’s probably time for that to change and for Ishant Sharma the fast bowler to finally be noticed.
