On Saturday, Ishant Sharma added four to his five first-innings scalps in the Pink Ball Test against Bangladesh.
Ishant Sharma bowls during Bangladesh's second innings on Day Two of the second Test at Eden Gardens. Pic/AFP
Kolkata: "Well bowled, hard luck". This heart-breaking combination of words was Ishant Sharma's constant companion for nearly a decade since his Test debut in Bangladesh in June 2007. The promise a five-wicket haul in his first appearance in India—against Pakistan in Bangalore that same December—and his sensational spell to Ricky Ponting in Perth in January 2008 increasingly began to look like aberrations as Ishant struggled to translate early promise to consistent potency.
On Saturday, Ishant added four to his five first innings scalps in the pink ball Test against Bangladesh.
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Desperate to justify the faith placed in him by successive skippers and selection panels, Ishant has eventually matured like fine wine, getting better and better with age, experience and wisdom.
Jasprit Bumrah is the majority's darling with his sensational yorkers and superb changes of pace. Mohammed Shami, the badshah of reverse, is raking in the plaudits with his ramrod-straight seam that comes with a brilliant wrist position. Umesh Yadav has set stall as an India expert, relishing in the very conditions that more illustrious names of his ilk have struggled to combat in the past.
Ishant has almost had to sail in the wake of his younger colleagues, but he couldn't care less. Not anymore, with a new mindset that allows him to sift the superfluous from the necessary.
Not that, despite 292 sticks in his 96th Test, Ishant, 31, really falls in the 'old' category.
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