With some late swing,Ishant reverses fortunes

The first ball,to the freeflowing Brad Haddin,was too short,very wide and seemed completely harmless the prototype delivery Ishant had bowled to the right-handers all day.

Had rain not washed away Day One of this Test match and had the second not begun half an hour earlier than the scheduled time all else remaining the same,Ishant Sharma would have brought in the first working day of his 50th Test by going wicketless. This,though,was different. Very different. In the 94th over of the day,with 45 minutes still left on the clock,Ishant was brought back for his fourth and final spell. And in his hand was a rather battered looking ball.

Fourteen overs had passed since the second new ball had been made available,but a procrastinating MS Dhoni was in no mood for it. The spinners had kept the run flow in check,but this late in the day it was wickets that he was looking for. So in came Ishant,given one last chance to find that elusive reverse swing.

The first ball,to the freeflowing Brad Haddin,was too short,very wide and seemed completely harmless the prototype delivery Ishant had bowled to the right-handers all day. But somehow,almost magically,Haddin managed to drag a nudge through square on to his soon-to-be-tumbling leg stump. The team huddled around his wild celebrations,even as Moises Henriques asked the umpire for the missing stumps guard.

Standing well outside leg,Henriques watched the mane flutter in. Another short ball from Ishant and Henriques got well behind it. Dhoni,standing with gloves crossed,looked less than pleased. That,however,would soon change,as would Ishants luck in this match. With a ball finally smacking good length,Ishant invited the Aussie all-rounder to drive. But just as he did,the ball reversed its course,snaking in to shatter Henriques timber. Finally,this was the Ishant of the ek aur dalega fame.

When Ishant first burst on to the scene,dismissing Ricky Ponting seemed as natural to him as say maintaining his hair wasnt. India had at long last got an experiment right after many failures,unearthing a true fast bowler. Since the turn of the century,India had seen as many as 28 genuine bowling debutants. Eighteen of them were fast bowlers. Only Zaheer and Ishant managed to make it to the 50 Test mark.

Underachiever

But thats where their similarity ends. While a 50-Test old Zaheer had already transformed himself into a bowling guru and had begun mentoring the future,a 50-Test Ishant is currently hanging on to his place in the eleven because however plausible it may seem,India just cannot field an all-spin attack. The Ashwins and the Ojhas of the world,though,have already started keeping Ishant waiting until the 76th over of the game. Somewhere along the way,his fall was as quick as the rise. The Ishant of old hasnt quite returned.

Blame this on his injuries,but not on the burden of bowling in the subcontinent. Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath,the only other Indian pacers apart from Zaheer and Ishant to cross 50 Tests have bowling averages of 29.01 and 26.35 in Asia respectively. And especially in Ishants case,the numbers do tell you the whole story.

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In the history of Test cricket,only two fast bowlers have averaged over 35 after playing 50 Test matches. The man with the second worst figures is Fidel Edwards,37.87 after 55 matches. No prizes for guessing the top-charter for the dubious record,Ishant with 38.27.