With a mere lead of 13 runs, when England came to bat for the second time, they lasted at the crease for some 50-odd overs in the ongoing first Test against India at Edgbaston.
With a mere lead of 13 runs, when England came to bat for the second time, they lasted at the crease for some 50-odd overs in the ongoing first Test against India at Edgbaston.
After Virat Kohli’s brilliant effort with the bat in the first innings that took India close to England’s total of 287, it was Ishant’s turn to deliver for the team at the much needed occasion.
In 13 overs he bowled, he removed five batsmen, basically England’s middle-order after Ravichandran Ashwin created havoc on the top-order. Ashwin dismissed Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings and Joe Root within 15 overs before Ishant began his business.
Ishant has always been under-estimated especially when in reality he is the one who is brought to make repairs after other bowlers end up messing up the situation. Since he has had consistency problems, he has not been in the good books of neither cricket pundits nor fans. But, on Friday, he was a bit different. In the first hour, he managed to create the pressure as England batsmen began to struggle.
The next 15 overs saw Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler become Ishant’s victims as he sent them back to the pavilion one after another.
Ishant’s improvement as a Test bowler did not take place overnight. It was a process that began with his stint with Sussex in the beginning of this County season under the close guidance of former Australian cricketer Jason Gillespie.
Sussex’s captain, Ben Brown spoke to Indian Express about Gillespie’s role with Ishant.”When we saw him head straight to the training nets as soon as he landed, we knew Ishant meant business. I remember he played a warm-up game early on; it was probably 5 degrees or something cold. But he put in a lot of overs. Same thing in the nets, he trained for hours with Jason,” Brown narrated.
Brown revealed that Jason and Ishant worked on two particular things – the fuller length and his wrist position behind the ball to get it straighten after pitching to the right-handed batsmen.
“I remember Jason telling him that he should probably forget the top of the off-stump stuff; instead focus on the knee-roll,” he added.
Jason and Ishant apparently even worked a lot with the Duke balls that are generally used in Tests in England. If he had to hit knee high, then he had to get the ball fuller. That was the rationale,” Brown said.
Ishant’s errors in Test cricket are widely known which is why he had become a target bowler for any opponent India has played recently. For example, Ishant tends to not strike the correct length and on most occasions ends up bowling too wide and not test a batsman’s front-foot play.
Brown said while Gillespie was more than happy to mentor him, Ishant was even more curious to get his bowling back on track.
“They would be at it for hours in the nets. The key to bowling in the UK is the length. We see a lot of bowlers fall into the trap of bowling too short and not challenging the stumps enough. Gillespie had said that the length issue was Ishant’s biggest challenge. If he can keep the stumps in play as much as possible, he can be quite effective,” Brown added.
Eventually, Gillespie and Ishant’s hours of hard work during the former’s county stint eventually paid off for India. On Day three, Ishant led India’s pace attack and with his five-for, India restricted England at a mere 188 all out.
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