India vs Sri Lanka: Has Ishant Sharma bowled himself back into first-choice contention?

As the ball sunk into his fingers, Cheteshwar Pujara was ecstatic. It was a new ploy to have him stand at first slip, and he lunged forward, the first wicket to fall in the second Test against Sri Lanka. His joyful exertions almost took attention away from the fact that it was Ishant Sharma’s wicket. It was a brilliant delivery — landing perfectly on the seam, in-line with off-stump and moving away from the batsman thereafter. The movement wasn’t too pronounced, unlike Kolkata, but it was too much to handle for Sadeera Samarawickrama, despite having faced 14 deliveries prior.

Ishant had missed the first Test, and was fired-up in Nagpur. Sri Lanka were in some bother that morning, mostly thanks to Ishant on that lively pitch while the little grass on it was still fresh. Ishant struck again, just as Dimuth Karunaratne — having survived against both R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja — was looking to get set. Ishant slipped in his ‘stock’ delivery, the one that comes into batsmen, going across the left-hander, creating enough doubt in his head. Karunaratne dabbed at it, choosing to play it off his legs standing tall at the crease, and was caught plumb in front. The bowler was joyous, and rightly so. It is when that incoming delivery falls to perfection, Ishant is seen to be at his very best, and this spell proved so. Like most fast bowlers will tell you, it is all about rhythm in their business. If a pacer doesn’t bowl for days on end, the rust won’t come off as easily it might for a batsman who hasn’t had a hit or a spinner who hasn’t tossed up the ball for the same duration. Fast bowling is unnatural to the human body, as the legendary Wasim Akram once put it. What pacers do for a living is akin to heavy machinery put to operation – they are high maintenance and need proper oiling to prove efficient in the long run. When the Kolkata Test began, India already had two rusty pacers in the side — Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav, both not included in the limited-overs plans for a while now — and it showed in their initial spells. In that light, it was the right call to let Ishant play Ranji Trophy before joining the team in Nagpur. Leading Delhi this season, he has been in good form, picking 20 wickets in four matches before a match-haul of 5/80 in the second Test against Sri Lanka. “I was pretty confident as I was playing first-class cricket. I had good rhythm coming into this game. Pace is not a problem for me. I just have to keep working on my stock delivery,” he told the host broadcaster during the game. His reference to the ‘stock delivery’ needs to be underlined. Like mentioned before, it is the singular representation of how Ishant is bowling at any particular time. When it comes out right, like in this case, you know things are clicking for him. It also points to a time when this wasn’t happening, when Ishant didn’t look the part as India’s leading pacer and you just knew from the way he struggled to hold shape during delivery. It can be a struggle to pinpoint this from his long Test career — 78 already — and takes more than a keen look at just the wickets’ column. It was during the West Indies’ tour last year when Ishant had hit his last poor patch. Let it be said outright that he wasn’t bowling badly, yet Shami and Yadav simply stole a march on him. On flatter tracks in the Caribbean, despite his height, pace and ability to move both the old and new ball, Ishant struggled to make deep inroads into the West Indies’ line-up returning 8 wickets from four Tests at an average of 32.12. Shami had 11 wickets at 25.81 in the same interim, while Yadav played only two Tests, picking five wickets at 29.80. This is where Ishant’s travails seem to kick in. When conditions at St. Lucia called for the inclusion of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yadav made way for him and not Ishant. The reasoning was two-fold — one, Yadav and Shami are largely similar bowlers. And two, Ishant provided a steady holding-line from one end even if the wickets’ column didn’t reflect so. Yet, when the long 2016-17 season began, Yadav was picked ahead of Ishant and enjoyed a stellar run. Ishant played only 1 out of 7 Tests against New Zealand and England (he missed the Mumbai Test on account of his wedding), and it was Shami’s injury that brought him back for the Bangladesh and Australia series thereafter. That last series — three wickets in three Tests at an average of 69.66 — was again remembered more for Ishant’s facial antics than anything else. It was no surprise that he sat out all three Tests in Sri Lanka in July-August behind Shami-Yadav. “I didn’t take many wickets in the last 12 Tests I played, especially in India. Umesh, Shami and even Bhuvi have been bowling tremendously, and deserved to get a chance before me,” Ishant said in Nagpur. Before this Test, going all the way back to South Africa’s tour here in 2015, he had returned a mere 18 wickets at average 41.61. It helps when a cricketer knows where he stands, and in this particular case, Ishant didn’t stand out as India’s most experienced pacer. The thing of note, however, is that it doesn’t put him out of contention at all, particularly with a long overseas schedule coming up. In fact, it was during the overseas cycle that Ishant came up with his best performances. Across South Africa, New Zealand, England, Australia and Sri Lanka, he returned 56 wickets in 14 Tests at an average of 32.69. It was the best he had ever bowled, underlined by his stunning burst of 7/74 at Lord’s for that famous win. As always, Ishant puts strange quandary in front of the team management. He lacks neither pace, nor motivation, and has ample ability plus experience to lift the bowling attack. At the same time, the small fact that India now possesses a brilliant battery of four pacers — arguably their best in two decades — cannot be denied either. So, when the first Test at Cape Town comes about, will Kohli start with his most experienced pacer, or will Ishant be relegated to the bench?