The resurgence of Ishant Sharma

Ishant Sharma has resurrected his career with a match-winning 7/74 at Lord’s

At the age of 25, Ishant Sharma has seen a lot of the negative side of what it is to be an Indian cricketer. He has been constantly lambasted by critics and cricket fans alike for his performances, for continually being selected in the team, to the outright absurd, being ridiculed for his choice of hairstyle.

The promise of Ishant

Ishant’s international cricket career started off on a very promising note, the beanpole-framed 19-year-old taking five wickets against Pakistan on a featherbed of a wicket in Bangalore. The performance was good enough for him to be sent to Australia, in which he provided the world with one of the most memorable fast bowling spells to one of the greatest batsmen of the era.

That hour of tormenting and torturing Ricky Ponting at the WACA went down as a part of folklore, as Indians believed they finally had a fast bowler that would help them win overseas.

And the downfall

Not a lot went right for Ishant after that tour. He lost his pace, lost his control, and struggled to find the right length to trouble the batsmen at home or abroad with his steeping height. Indian selectors persisted with Ishant time and time again, to the point where he had the unwanted record of having the worst bowling average for any bowler with 50 Test caps or more.

It was hard to see why selectors continued with him, but at the same time, it was hard to see how he could be ignored. With his height, and India’s lack of pace bowling options, his spot was almost guaranteed consistently, never minding the results. However, with the emergence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami in the last couple of years, it seemed that Ishant would be cast into obscurity like many an Indian fast bowler before him.

Ishant’s career was given an extended rope due to the tough nature of India’s tours in 2013 through to 2015. With away series in South Africa, New Zealand, now England and then into Australia later on this year – and the lack of form or fitness of Zaheer Khan, experience was needed.

The hope still remains

Through the New Zealand tour especially, Ishant gave Indian fans the glimpse of the very best and the very worst of what he had to offer – in the same Test in Wellington. Taking 6/51 in New Zealand’s first innings, it was thought maybe he was on his way to living up to his potential from that magical spell against Ricky Ponting in 2008, however, disappointment followed with a return of 0/164 in the very next innings.

Fast forward to the 2nd Test against England at Lord’s, India were in a similar position to what they were in Johannesburg in December 2013, and Wellington in February 2014. Familiar feelings had started to rise amongst players and fans: Six wickets to take for their first victory outside Asia in more than three years, two established batsmen at the crease not budging. The game was slowing moving away from India’s grasp.

Dhoni throws the ball to his lanky speedster, and hatches a plan to pepper the English batsmen with short bowling. Ishant, full of self-doubt, does not agree with his captain. Dhoni, facing as much pressure about his overseas Test captaincy as Ishant does about his bowling, doesn’t give his young bowler any option, and tells him to follow his orders. What followed was an un-Dhoni-like, un-Indian-like for that matter, ploy to buy wickets with short pitched bowling.

Ishant’s spell, accentuated by the inept nature of England’s middle and lower order batting of course, was one of the greatest witnessed by an Indian seamer since that spell in 2008.

Pushing his body to its limits, till his team was comfortably on the board with the victory, as well as his own name on the Lord’s honours board, it seemed Ishant had turned a new leaf in his career.

It is hard to remember that Ishant is only a young man of 25 years, and with 57 Tests under his belt, his record may not be the greatest. It needs to be remembered that many fast bowlers do not even debut at Ishant’s current age, and he was robbed of the development phase of his early career being thrown straight into Test cricket. Now with a captain who believes in himself, and in Ishant, he may just turn out to be the fast bowler India have been looking for all these years.

Only time will tell.

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