It has been a rocky journey with lots of ups and downs, insists Ishant Sharma
After Delhi's Ranji victory over Hyderabad, Ishant Sharma has stated that his career has been filled with a lot of ups and downs and he is at a happy place now. Ishant has also added that the maturity of the pace unit is what helped as the India have emerged as a pace-bowling superpower.
For the major part of his career, Ishant Sharma is a workhorse who runs in and bowls with minimal impact. MS Dhoni backed him to the tilt, only to see him develop the control factor, but Ishant emerged as a successful bowler only under the reign of Virat Kohli who gave him the freedom to execute his plans. In the last two years, none of the six bowlers who have taken more wickets than his 66 wickets has done so at a better average than his 19.43, which is a sign of his growth as a leader of the pack.
"It has been a rocky journey with a lot of ups and downs. But I have started enjoying my cricket more. It's fun to play now. In the initial phase of my career, I used to put immense pressure on myself. I don't do that anymore," Ishant told Times of India.
Ishant's emergence has also coincided with the fact that all of India's pace bowlers have grown exponentially to form a solid unit. The camaraderie that the pace bowling unit shares are one of the biggest contributing factors as well, with communication being the main operative word.
"We are very proud that fast bowlers are dominating. When Shami and Umesh came in, our attack was inexperienced. So we didn't take wickets in tandem We share our experiences. Not just me but they also give their feedback about how the pitch behaves, about conditions. The communication is far better now. First, we didn't know each other a lot, you are reserved but now the communication level is very good," Ishant said.
"Earlier, the fast bowlers would be rotated a lot. That's also a reason that consistency as a group couldn't be achieved. If you know that you have a pool of 3-4 fast bowlers (now with Jasprit Bumrah), that increases communication. Earlier, there would be 6-7 bowlers, communication wasn't there."
When Ishant played a season of county cricket in 2018 for Sussex, head coach Jason Gillespie pointed out that Ishant was just releasing the ball when he tried to pitch it up. He needed to find a way to hit that fuller length hard. By asking him to hit the batsman's pads, at the level of the knee roll, the former Aussie pacer gave Ishant a new plan to succeed.
"Zak (Zaheer Khan) gave us a lot of solutions. A lot of people would tell me that I need to increase the pace of my fuller deliveries. No one told me how to do that. When I went to play county cricket, Jason Gillespie told me the solution," Ishant stressed.
"Gillespie told me that in order to increase the pace of my fuller deliveries, you don't just release it but hit the deck so that it should hit the knee roll. Earlier, I would put cones during nets. But that's okay for a youngster who wants to get his area right. But for someone like me, I need to see where my ball is finishing rather than where it's pitched."
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