Benched Ishant the new problem child?

Since becoming a regular member of the India ODI team early last year,Ishant Sharma hasnt been accustomed to leaving the field with minutes to go for the start of a game.

Far away from where the members of Indias playing XI converged in a huddle before their final group game against West Indies,Ishant Sharma was walking gingerly to the dressing room with bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad. Since becoming a regular member of the India ODI team early last year,the 21-year-old hasnt been accustomed to leaving the field with minutes to go for the start of a game.

And since taking his place in the XI on a track with pace and bounce was military medium pacer Abhishek Nayar,it was clear that the erstwhile pace prodigy was now seen as a problem child. A gradual dip in Sharmas form was detected towards the end of last season. Thats why Prasad was a worried man during Team Indias off-season. When someone is new to the game,he tends to take a number of wickets. But after some time people sort him out. This is the period for Ishant where he needs to learn new tricks and not get disheartened. Its important for people to have patience with him, Prasad had said few days before the team went for the season-opening tri-series in Sri Lanka.

Ishant bowled well in patches on the Lanka tour but lacked bite in his two outings in the Champions Trophy,bowling short and wide far too often. It would be easy to dismiss his dip as second-season blues,but some experts feel the problem could be deeper because it isnt about Sharmas inability to come up with new variations to fox batsmen who have spent hours watching his old tapes; its about Sharma not being able to repeat his hard-to-pick in-cutters that had made him an instant phenomenon.

Ishant had a close-to-the-stumps approach,he used to hit the perfect length and had a big in-cutter a combination that has given wickets to several long-lasting international bowlers despite their videos being playing in a loop in rival dressing rooms. Indian skipper MS Dhoni,a day before he took the decision to drop Ishant from the XI,hit the nail on the head. Ishant isnt the bowler he once was. It was only in the last few overs against Australia he bowled like he used to. He was bowling stump to stump at the right length and the ball was coming in too, Dhoni said.

While Indias bowling attack has squarely to be blamed for the teams show at Champions Trophy,Ishant will almost certainly retain his place for the tri-series against Australia. But its about time he banks on his old,reliable tricks and does not attempt to be a bowler he isnt.