 Ishant Sharma - Indian discovery Down Under
10th Mar 2008 22:03 IST
Manish Kumar
Although he had little success, the management knew he bowled beautifully and retained him for the third Test match at Perth.
On the fourth day of the match he bowled an exceptional spell to Australian captain Ricky Ponting that resulted in his wicket and helped India claim victory. Ishant used the pace and bounce of the WACA wicket to trouble the batsmen.
In the following Test in Adelaide Ishant was impressive again picking up two wickets. He didn't bowl above 140-145 kph mark in the Test matches so that he could bowl longer spells as needed in this version of the game. He clocked a highest of 147.7 km/h (91.1 mph) at the Adelaide Test his highest till then.
On February 10, 2008, Ishant bagged four important wickets in the 4th ODI of Tri-Series against Australia. He ended up with the figures of 4/38 and claimed the man of the match award.
He scalped two important wickets on February 18, 2008 against Australia in the 7th ODI of Tri-Series to start the riot of Australia's batting failure.
A high-arm action attacking on and around the batsman's off-stump (the corridor of uncertainty) gives Ishant the ability to nip the ball back in to right-handed batsman and also swing it through the air quite considerably, while extracting a great deal of bounce.
Some critics have compared him to the 1980s' West Indian fast bowlers, especially the great Curtly Ambrose. He has also been compared to former Indian fast bowler Javagal Srinath.
On the basis of his recent strong performance in Australia, Ishant was lapped up for an astounding winning bid of $950,000 by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan for his franchise Kolkata in the player auction for the IPL Twenty20.
This is the highest amount paid for any bowler in the IPL tournament. |
