‘I can put Ishant back on track’

“It is true that I haven’t seen him in a long while. Had he come back during the off-season before the IPL I could have helped him correct the mistakes he is making. One cannot keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again,” Kumar says.

But seeing Ishant working with Wasim Akram,Venkatesh Prasad,Manoj Prabhakar and Eric Simmons in the last one year to regain his lost form and confidence,Kumar fears that he to might go the Irfan Pathan way. While feeling disappointed that Ishant hasn’t fallen back on him during his lean patch,he reiterates that the player’s first coach alone can rectify the faults and bring him back to his original self.

“A coach is like a family doctor,he knows your medical history inside out. The moment you go to a new one,he will start prescribing medicines without understanding the way you have grown. I feel a bowler should go back to the coach who has seen him grow from the beginning. Had Ishant come back to me,I would have been able to help him. Even now,I can put him back on track in one day flat,it’s like formatting a disc and starting afresh,” he says. “I hope by the time he realises his mistake it isn’t too late. He is a very talented fellow who should be bowling for India for at least 10-15 years but as of now,he is rotting away very quickly. I’m very sad that he has hit the downward curve.”

Kumar explains himself further. “I am not saying that people like Wasim or Prabhakar or Prasad don’t know anything about fast bowling. They can only give tips to Ishant of what they have done in their career. Ishant has what some of them didn’t have —- most of them were swing bowlers whereas Ishant is an out and out fast bowler. Ishant is currently just running around the big names trying to get help. He gets tired after bowling just four overs,I do not understand how that can happen. I’m sure that there is psychological pressure on him to perform at the highest level,but if he isn’t there physically,it is his major drawback.”.

Ishant entered the international scene with a bustling speed of 150+kmph,clocking the fastest ball ever by an Indian during the Australia tour but has since,slowed down considerably and is seen grazing the line-and-length path —- something that Kumar feels is the first of many blunders to come.

An experienced coach,Kumar has produced a dozen first-class cricketers for Delhi and several other states,but he is keen for his best pupil to do well. “Maybe he will feel hurt,even get angry that I spoke so much about him,but he should realise that it’s for his own good and that he needs to understand what is going wrong,” he says.

Sharvan promises that when Kolkata plays their next game in the IPL,he will once again switch on the television and watch Ishant bowl and make mental notes of his student. That has been his routine “and responsibility as Ishant’s coach.”