For long, they hankered with their board about suitable gradations and now an open market has reflected their true worth.
SYDNEY: The morning after the Indian Premier League auction, when their phones did not stop ringing, most Indian cricketers stayed put in their hotel rooms and reflected on the seismic event which has changed their lives forever.
For long, they hankered with their board about suitable gradations and now an open market has reflected their true worth.
Or has it? For young Ishant Sharma fetched a price in the auction ($950,000) which outstripped the likes of Anil Kumble and Muthiah Muralitharan; Chaminda Vaas and Brett Lee; Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.
Sharma, all of 6'4" and still growing, is not yet 20 and in five Tests and seven one-day internationals, has only eight wickets to boast. Yet his $950,000 is nearly twice the amount which his captain Anil Kumble has commanded.
Kumble has spent as many summers in the field as Sharma has seen in his young life. It is the brand value and saleability among youth, rather than quality and longevity, which has dictated the market.
Sharma, the success story of the present tour, is reaping beyond his wildest dreams. A destiny's child, he cooled his heels in the Melbourne Test despite picking a five-wicket haul in the previous game for India. Injury to Zaheer Khan marked his return in Sydney.
Kumble's words 'Ek Aur Over Karega' in Perth when he clearly already had overbowled an over or two, was the cataclysmic moment of his life.
He kept getting the big wickets, Ricky Ponting all the time, and reviews only got better.
Javagal Srinath has no doubt Sharma was better than him at his age. He predicted the young Delhi fast bowler could be the best in the world in due course. Australian Damien Fleming had a similar refrain on the young beanpole of a bowler. Steve Waugh, Terry Alderman, Kapil Dev, everyone kept gushing and it seems all such praise was adding those extra thousands of dollars to his worth.
Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar, who would now bowl along with him for the Kolkata franchise, wants India to use him sparingly. He has injury concerns for the young bowler, for the teenager is hurling his thunderbolts without concern, be it in the nets or in the middle of a match.
Sharma has so far bowled 34 overs in the ongoing tri-series and 101 had preceded in three Tests in less than a month before it, and all the talk of skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni about rotation of bowlers clearly does not involve him.
The Delhi youngster's success story would now inspire millions of youngsters to try and convince their parents to let them try their hand at the game for a career.
Son of an air-conditioner seller, Sharma first marked his run-up on a cricket field only four years ago. In terms of staggering success, it does not get better than this.
He comes from a family without any cricketing background and took up the game to gainfully use his free time.
But he has come a long way to bowl the fastest delivery ever by an Indian, 152kmph, on a cricket field.
Asked to name his strengths, Sharma mentions his height, line and length, bounce and the inswinger which Ponting, for the life of his, cannot figure out.
Even though living out a dream, Sharma has his feet as firmly planted in life as it is on the bowling crease. He is friendly but does not believe in hanging out with friends. He is not a great movie buff either and it seems for the moment, it's all about bowling faster and better.
He is a great fan of Glenn McGrath and like the 'Pigeon', Sharma keeps bowling at the 'fourth stump' and his accuracy so far is better than any seen by an Indian paceman for the length of a tour, since Kapil Dev. He just does not drift down on the legside and even the six by Mahela Jayawardene the other day in Adelaide was off a delivery pitched on the off-stump.
So far the success and pressures of international cricket sit lightly on Sharma. He might have fell to Michael Clarke in Sydney for the agonising loss of a Test but the other day in Adelaide, he blocked two balls from Lasith Malinga to leave Dhoni with his last over heroics.
His technique to sway out of line of a bouncing delivery has even come in for praise from Sunil Gavaskar, and the catch at mid-off off Kumara Sangakkara in Canberra last week promised a complete package from this hugely talented youngster.
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