From a teenage wolf to the leader of a pack - Ishant Sharma’s steadfast rise to 100 Tests caps

Ishant Sharma wasn’t just another teenager in Delhi but instead had set his big foot into world cricket, storming the Indian fans by surprise and catching their immediate attention. The world took note of the lanky pacer, who surely still was a hot-headed youngster, a teenage wolf - who was still celebrating every dismissal with an extra iota of aggression. 

The first one showed him the struggles of international cricket and the bends of playing against Australia at their own den, going wicketless. Come to Perth, a ground that had natural bounce and more seam movement, Ishant had already undergone a change in his planning, his bowling, with a conscious effort to bowl the fuller length. 

It could have gone either way, it could have resulted in him getting in and out of the squad or the reality that transpired. And then, “Ek aur over daalega?” happened and the rest is history. He was a hero, he was already hailed as the next big thing, with budding cricketers growing their hair just like him, with an aspiration to play for the country. He didn’t do anything different, it was a similar spell of the hundreds if not thousands that he had bowled for Delhi in domestic cricket but when it came to the attention of the world stage and media, he was crowned as a jewel. 

In between his debut series and the first real away Test against New Zealand, Ishant had picked 38 wickets, bowling in the sub-continent, on pitches that had honed his skills, in the first place, on pitches where pacers were never always in the game, on pitches where bending the back was the only way of getting success. From there on, there was always going to be added pressure, not because of just playing in conditions that favour pace bowlers but away from home. 

If Virat Kohli learnt ably from the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Ishant had picked the art from Zaheer and had always held a likeable corner for him. So in 2011, against England, when he got to play in the most favourable of conditions for him, it was a gift-wrapped in gold. When asked in 2011 about leading the side, a young Ishant, who had played around 33 Test matches stood up and admitted that he doesn’t mind leading the bowling attack. 

That year was all about Ishant, though, India had lost all their overseas tour in England and South Africa, managed a win in West Indies and ultimately wrapped the Windies yet again at home. Throughout the year, even with the Indian team’s ups and downs, Ishant had picked up 43 wickets, at an average of 36.69, with two fifers and one ten-fer. While he got wickets in plenty, there was always a concern that surrounded his bowling - the bad balls, the deliveries that garnered a wrong interest around him. With Zaheer Khan on the last leg of his international career, could India trust Ishant to oversee the new generation of Indian pacers?

While Bhuvneshwar Kumar was still growing as a bowler, Ishant was already tall in the pecking order, having earned his merit at a very young age. Although he did earn it, it was always a question of whether he would live upto the expectations of the Indian fans, that always startled him. Most of his wickets during that period came away from home, an average of 35, with 43 wickets at a strike-rate of 60.8, far from being the best in the world. 

And then came in the period that would always egg Ishant - the phase where he was called a ‘villain’ for conceding 30 runs in an over. The flashy news channels had him all over the television, with his visuals aided by the sounds of thunder, the visuals of lightning on his face and the aided one of James Faulkner doing the damage. It wasn’t a World Cup, it wasn’t even a World T20 but a bilateral series where Australia got the better of India, from a rather improbable situation. That was also the start of the end of his white-ball career. 

"21 Oct 2013... Ishant Sharma’s miracle' 30-run over against Australia in the third ODI led to an avalanche of jokes on the internet" (MSN); "13 Feb 2014 ... IPL 7 Auction: Ishant Sharma jokes are trending on Twitter" (cricketcountry.com); "4 April 2013 Check out the 30 best jokes on Ishant Sharma" (IPLWA.com),” the searches read in 2014, reported ESPN. 

Success and failure - two things that can either overwhelm a person or can put them under the sea. It was the former that hit him during his teenage years and it was the latter that hit him after he had earned his relative success. Now if that was white-ball cricket, his red-ball form too hit a low, his deliveries were often on the legs, it was often not on the mark, which prompted a change in the Indian bowling attack, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar already upping the ante as a bowler. 

Five wickets for @ImIshant on his @CountyChamp debut! 💫



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— Sussex Cricket (@SussexCCC) April 17, 2018

That was when the lanky pacer met Jason Gillespie, spent his time in Sussex and changed his career for the good. During both Ishant’s primitive years and the mature years, every coach in the country would want him to bowl fuller, forget coaches, every Indian cricketer, former or current would want him to show more experience. Naturally, at that point, life and perspective life becomes two contrasting things - showing confidence is one but faking one is another.

"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 told Delhi Capitals in a video. 

Being the ninth Indian player for Sussex, following the footsteps of Zaheer Khan, playing in county cricket, Ishant was more concerned and excited about working closely with Gillespie, who seemingly would turn his career around. While it was Australia, which gave him initial success, it was natural that an Australian working in England would give him his second life. The 32-year-old was always known for hitting the length, the hard-length that Test cricket is about but that alone wasn’t giving him any success. 

As trust and respect have been, it was never a one-way street for either of the cricketers - Gillespie or Ishant, with the former Australian pacer having high praises for the pacer after the end of his stint at Sussex. 

“When you see an overseas player, you want dedication and someone who is willing to give his 100%, a good bloke and someone who performs. Ishant has lived up to all of that and is a wonderful man to have in the dressing room, a wonderful leader and he has taken some of our young bowlers in his wing and talked cricket with them,” Gillespie told Sussex. 

He has worked doubly hard on his fitness, his expectations and made a mockery of all the people that doubted him. Nearing his 100th Test, Ishant reinvented himself, picking up 41 wickets in the 2018 season before picking up 10 in the next three Tests that he would go on to play, in a year that was haunted by COVID-19. In England, he was constantly under the pressure of maintaining his status quo as the leader, some even questioning his stint in the County prior to the series as even being an iota helpful. 

“Because if I am playing for so long and if you don't take wickets - in the first innings I got just one wicket. I had played county [for Sussex] that summer. What kind of impact player am I then? All these things only matter if you take wickets. Before that second innings when we bowled, the previous night I could not sleep. I knew that if I did not take those wickets, my career was over. After that I would watch cricket only on TV. I am speaking frankly,” Ishant told ESPNCricinfo.

“I can’t really pinpoint at a point where my career turned around, it was always up and down. That’s the career of an athlete, there isn’t a high always, there are the lows that always surround it and that’s the beauty of it,” he said, which signalled and portrayed his entire career - from a teenage wolf to the leader of a pick, his rise will always go down in history.