IND vs ENG | Ishant’s change in length has resulted in him picking more wickets, reckons Sunil Gavaskar

Since he broke out in the series against Australia, Ishant Sharma has become an integral part of the Indian bowling attack over the years. However, during the early part of his career, with pace, his line and length were never under the scanner. Once the pace levels bore down, the right-arm seamer was consistently criticised for bowling the shorter lengths, which didn’t force the batsmen to play the shots. 

In the recent past, since his conversation with Jason Gillespie, the lanky pacer has changed his length to fuller ones, which Sunil Gavaskar reckons has resulted in him in picking more wickets. Gavaskar also insisted that prior to his change in length, the pacer was consistently beating the outside edge of the batsmen, not forcing them to play. 

"He's bowling a lot further. He was earlier on bowling maybe around 18 inches shorter and so therefore was going past the outside edge, beating the batsmen. It was all looking very good but in the wickets column he wasn't actually showing results," Gavaskar said during the tea interval on Day 4 of the first Test against Chennai, reported HT.

Playing in his 98th Test match, the Delhi pacer brought up his 300 wickets in the longest format while also completing his 100 Test wickets tally in the country. Gavaskar elucidated his point by pointing out that Ishant gets the batsmen more trapped in front or hits the timber with his changed bowling lengths. 

"Now that he's started doing that in the last 2-3 years, this the kind of dismissals he gets – LBW, with the ball keeping low. The further you bowl, the more you get the opportunity to make the bowl move in the air or off the pitch."