Ishant Sharma's journey in international cricket

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  • Birthday boy Ishant Sharma

    Harbhajan Singh knows Ricky Ponting very well. There have been many ‘bunnies’ in cricket history, but none perhaps quite as high profile in recent years as the pair of the former Australian captain and one of the most successful spinners in Indian cricket history.

    Indeed, when India toured Australia in 2007-08, Ponting had enough on his plate worrying about the turbaned off-spinner.

    He hadn’t banked on another adding to his woes. Another, who was a 19-year-old speedster from Delhi, a 6’4” right-armer with a husky voice and a fearsome mane of black hair.

    At Perth in January 2008, Ishant Sharma, playing his fourth Test, and his electrifying pace rocked the home captain into a terrified state – before he had Ponting caught out twice in the game as India secured a historic win. A new superstar, it seemed, had arrived.

    EARLY PROMISE

    Ishant made it to Australia on the back of a good performance against Pakistan at home

    Ishant made it to Australia on the back of a good performance against Pakistan at home

    That he had made it to Australia seemed an achievement in itself. Men like Sachin Tendulkar are an exception; precocious teenagers have been trusted with big responsibility only infrequently.

    In the latter half of the 2000s, a new clutch of fast bowlers emerged. They were hoped to become the pace spearheads of a team for the next decade.

    Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Munaf Patel were two others who came through at roughly the same time as Sharma, but injuries to both had led to the youngster being drafted into the squad for Australia. Another contemporary of his, RP Singh, also featured in that series.

    But Sharma, unlike the others, managed to stick. Although his scorching pace was eventually damaged, and he has had his struggles since, the bowler has battled injury, poor form, inconsistency and internet ribbing to remain in the mix for the Test side.

    Yet, he offers a link to the past, to the side of Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Anil Kumble. Having turned 28, there is still much to be gained, and redemption yet to be achieved.

    Sharma has played a lot of Test cricket since his debut (72 matches in all, as of this writing) but he has never been a particularly prolific wicket taker, with 209 scalps at 2.90 wickets-per-game.

    Even during his first year-and-a-half in international cricket, during which he displayed enough to become Zaheer Khan’s second-in-command, this metric didn’t look particularly impressive at first glance: 44 wickets in 15 games (a little less than three wickets a game) at 31.59 and an economy of 3.12.

    LIMITED-OVERS LOTTERY

    Ishant's initiation in ODI cricket was better than most other's

    Ishant’s initiation in ODI cricket was better than most other’s

    The same losses incurred by so many others were the ones incurred by Sharma too – namely, those of speed and assurance. It was around this time that the decision was made to restrict him to the longest format of the game with the hope to re-encourage his bite and snap.

    It partly explains why he has played almost the same number of ODIs (80) as he has Test matches, and such few T20s (14). Indeed, the practice has continued to this day; Sharma has only played five ODIs since January 2015 and no T20s since October 2013. Alternatives have been found, and Sharma now contends himself with Test cricket.

    His limited-overs performances, however, bear some respectability. With 115 wickets in 80 one-dayers at 30.98, an economy of 5.72 and a strike rate of 32.4, Sharma appears, at first, a somewhat modest performer, but his track record is dotted with a number of admirable performances that, like his other career, gives rise to questions as to why he is unable to reproduce that form more consistently.

    His first series (against Australia; 14 wickets in 8 innings) was impressive, as were his efforts against Sri Lanka in January 2009. Displays against Pakistan in 2012-13 (7 wickets in three games; an economy of 3.71) and a tri-series involving Sri Lanka and West Indies in 2013 (8 in five games; 5.70) are other such examples.

    More recently, series against Sri Lanka in 2014 (4 in three games; 4.81) and Australia in 2016 (9 in four games; 6.25) bear signs of Sharma’s ability.

    Ankle surgery in 2012 deprived the seamer of a lot of cricketing action. His good performances have come regularly enough to maintain the faith in his selection , but when poor, Sharma’s wickets-per-game of 1.43 does not look too good as his rate of run concession climbs prohibitively high (it stands at 8.43 in T20s).

    He has played in neither of the World Cups held since his debut, but featured in the 2008 Asia Cup and the 2009 and 2013 Champions Trophy events.

    OBJECT OF RIDICULE

    Ishant Sharma memes were soon very easy to find online

    Ishant Sharma memes were soon very easy to find online

    Once his coruscating style was blunted, however, Sharma embarked on a difficult period in his career. From 2009 to 2012, he averaged 41.03 in Test cricket with 92 wickets from 32 games. His strike worsened to 70.9 and he conceded almost half his total runs in Tests in this three-year period.

    His figures in ODIs for the corresponding time read 38 wickets in 28 games at 32.76, an economy of 5.93 and a strike rate of 33.1 – although the difference from his career numbers are not as drastic as those in the longest format.

    Slowly, Sharma became a figure of fun in Indian cricket. The advent of social media and the explosion of the internet in the 2010s has made the spread of jokes and memes a quick and far-reaching phenomenon.

    As with Ravindra Jadeja after him, there were several tongue-in-cheek remarks referencing Sharma’s superhuman feats in the vein of Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth and the mock title of ‘Sir’, while the more cruel ones poked at his sometimes extraordinary leakage of runs.

    Light hearted ribbing is all well and good, but the moment they, and only they, come to define a sportsman is not as cool.

    The trolls were understandably out in full flow after disappointing performances, but when he performed well – man of the series with 22 wickets in three Tests at 16.86 in the West Indies in 2011; India won 0-1 – his displays were at times treated with surprise, as though someone like him ought to be incapable of performing the way he did.

    LORD’S

    Sharma’s Test average of 36.71, at present, seems destined to dog his record for as long as he plays. His batting has never been spectacular or even serviceable (not a single half-century in any recorded game of top-level cricket he has played), and now, restricted to Test cricket, he was looking like a one-trick pony who couldn’t even perform the trick.

    Numbers, however, never get in the way of sport’s greatest currency: glory. There had been signs when Sharma picked up 15 wickets in four innings against New Zealand in early 2014, but the tour of England that followed in the summer created a little piece of history.

    His height has always assisted Sharma in this endeavour, and in his youth, the Delhi bowler could count on searing pace to pitch deadly short deliveries at opposing batsmen. India hadn’t won at Lord’s since 1986, but Sharma’s match-winning spell of 7-74 ended the 28-year wait for a victory.

    In all, he gathered 14 wickets in three games in the series. With India 0-1 up, however, Sharma was injured, and only returned for the final Test. He grabbed four wickets, but it was a footnote in an innings defeat for India. It was quite possible Sharma’s finest hour, and the internet will jestingly tell you that India lost their lead and limply surrendered the series because the hero of Lord’s was absent.

    THE AGE OF KOHLI

    Barring an unexpected comeback, Sharma looks set to serve solely under Indian Test captain Virat Kohli for the foreseeable future. Early signs are encouraging; 13 wickets in three Tests in Sri  Lanka helped India end a wait of 22 years for a series win in the island nation.

    In the recently concluded series in the  Caribbean, Sharma gathered 8 wickets in four games at 32.12. These performances were broken up by an unenthusiastic performance at home to South Africa: only one wicket in five innings.

    What next for Sharma? Inconsistency has inevitably marked his career, and that question mark continues to hang over him. But the fact that he produces good performances every now and again has kept him in the side over the past nine years.

    Ironically, his inconsistency may have helped him keep that place. When his classmates from the late 2000s lost their touch, they lost it completely, with no hope for recovery.

    Sharma, meanwhile, kept turning up at fairly regular intervals and producing the goods; he may be mercurial, but from amidst a rubble of millennial fast bowlers, he looks like Glenn McGrath by comparison.

    It may not make him a permanent fixture in the side, but it probably ensures that Sharma will hang around for a little longer just yet.

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