Indian pacer Ishant Sharma is one bowler who has improved in Test cricket over the past 5 years. The lanky and tall bowler has come of age and is the leader of the pack in the whites.
Indian pacer Ishant Sharma is one bowler who has improved in Test cricket over the past 5 years. The lanky and tall bowler has come of age and is the leader of the pack in the whites.
Ishant along with fellow bowlers Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah have dominated the world making it one of the strongest bowling unit.
However, there was a time Ishant Sharma wasn’t this effective. He has played close to 100 Test matches after his stats are different from that.
Ishant, however, stated that he was never a bowler who ran after statistics. He said he just wanted to go out and do what his captain, MS Dhoni, asked him to do.
“MS Dhoni (the captain when Sharma’s numbers were middling) always backed me,” Sharma told ESPNCricinfo in a show called ‘cricketbaaz.’
“Even after my first 50-60 Tests, he never said we’ll look for someone to replace you. To tell you the truth, even after playing 97 Tests, I still don’t understand things like average and strike rate! I’ve never bothered about these things.
“If I’m not able to understand them, why should I rely on them? It’s just a number after all. If I am bowling in India and the captain tells me to bowl in a way that I concede only 40 runs in 20 overs and that the spinners will take care of picking up wickets, that’s what is important to me,” the 32-year-old said.
Ishant, who made his debut in 2007, has picked up 297 wickets in 97 Tests at an average of 32.39. He also has 115 wickets to his name in 80 ODIs for India.
Ishant stated that he just wanted to play the role Dhoni had given him. He added that the former India captain trusted him despite having average stats in Test cricket.
“It doesn’t matter to me that my bowling average is around 37. My communication will be with my captain and that’s why Dhoni backed me,” Ishant said.
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 "Ishant Sharma and MS Dhoni")
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