Ishant Sharma

India|Bowler
Ishant Sharma
INTL CAREER: 2007 - 2021
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Full Name

Ishant Sharma

Born

September 02, 1988, Delhi

Age

35y 199d

Batting Style

Right hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Fast medium

Playing Role

Bowler

With a physique and attitude that is reminiscent of a young Javagal Srinath, Ishant Sharma shot into prominence during the 2007-08 Test series in Australia. Standing at 6'4", his rhythmic, high-arm action allowed him to bowl at around 140 kph. For one who started serious cricket at 14, his rise was rapid and he made his Ranji Trophy debut at 18. An injury to Munaf Patel provided him an opening during India's tour of Bangladesh in May 2007 but it was in Australia where he caught the attention, prompting Steve Waugh to call him the next best thing in Indian cricket. He showed he could move the ball both ways and his probing spell in the second innings in Perth, where he set-up Ricky Ponting, is the stuff of folklore. He continued to impress in the one-day series, clocking more than 150kph once, and ended as India's highest wicket-taker in the triumphant campaign.

The glory days continued through his debut season, with a notable performance against South Africa, followed by 15 wickets in four Tests in the succesful home series against Australia in 2008, and a couple of strong shows in Sri Lanka in ODIs. By now Ishant was clearly Zaheer Khan's deputy in the Indian seam arsenal, but things have gone seriously wrong since. Some have blamed it on his being over-bowled, particularly on flat tracks in the IPL, while others point to a malaise that has afflicted all of India's new crop of fast bowlers. The fact remains that Ishant lost the most crucial aspect of his bowling - his pace. Without it, his natural short-of-a-good-length that had tormented batsmen of Ponting's calibre a season earlier lost its venom. Eventually the loss of pace led to a loss of self-confidence. The Indian selectors decided to be careful and began shielding him from the shorter formats of the game in 2009 in the hope that he would rediscover his zip. His struggle continued but given India's limited seam-bowling resources at the time, Ishant was persisted with, even after an ankle surgery in 2012 that put him out of action for months. When he completed 50 Tests in early 2013 he had among the worst averages for bowlers with 50 Test caps to their name.

Since then Ishant has somewhat revived his Test career. He was impressive on the tour of New Zealand, being the top wicket-taker in Tests with 15 wickets that included two five-wicket hauls. On his next overseas assignment, in England, Ishant was the hero of India's famous win at Lord's when he bounced out the England batsmen with his spell of 7 for 74, helping India to a 1-0 lead in the Test series. It was perhaps one of his best performances for India in whites.

He soon suffered a leg injury and was ruled out for the following two Tests. He did return for the fifth Test but his 4 for 96 was only part of an embarrassing innings defeat for India. He then went back to Australia, the country that had kick-started his career, but he could only manage mediocre performances in the three Tests he was a part of. His landing foot was proving to be a constant irritant to his fitness and the fast bowler picked up another injury, this time to his knee and was ruled out of the ODI tri-series that followed. Ishant failed to recover in time for the World Cup and was replaced by Mohit Sharma.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

Ishant Sharma Career Stats

Bowling

FormatMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
Tests10518819160100783117/7410/10832.403.1561.610111
ODIs8078373335631154/344/3430.985.7232.4600
T20Is141427840082/342/3450.008.6334.7000
FC15427227294138894867/2411/5128.573.0556.121162
List A130127614253931865/215/2128.995.2633.01010
T20s156156332643041315/125/1232.857.7625.3110

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
Tests10514247785578.26256830.5601881230
ODIs80281372134.8020335.460060190
T20Is143285*8.00988.88001040
FC154196671095668.48344131.82021225340
List A1304921200317.1441947.7300161270
T20s15634266610*8.257983.540052290
Ishant Sharma

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Recent Matches of Ishant Sharma

MatchBatBowlDateGroundFormat
Delhi vs Baroda02/4302-Feb-2024DelhiFC
Delhi vs Puducherry0 & 51/43 & 0/1505-Jan-2024DelhiFC
Delhi vs Haryana8*0/4801-Dec-2023AhmedabadList A
Delhi vs J + K150/3829-Nov-2023AhmedabadList A
Delhi vs Karnataka10/2827-Nov-2023AhmedabadList A

Videos of Ishant Sharma

Photos of Ishant Sharma

Ishant Sharma trains for IPL 2024
Ishant Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel share a laugh before the game
Ishant Sharma struck first ball
Ishant Sharma exults after removing Shikhar Dhawan
Ishant Sharma defended 11 runs in the last over
David Warner jumped on Ishant Sharma after the win was sealed