My first glimpse of Ishant Sharma was against South Africa A in June 2007.
He had an average outing, picked up the wicket of Boeta Dippenar if I remember right, and bowled exactly like a young, uncertain newcomer is expected to bowl. Some great deliveries interspersed with plenty of no balls and rather ordinary deliveries. Interestingly, not a single ball in that game was clocked at over 140 kmph.
I had a closer look at him in England and repeatedly asked myself why a young, tall Indian fast bowler can?t emulate his more illustrious Aussie counterparts and generate speeds of over 145 kmph. May be it had something to do with India. May be we were destined to have medium fast rather than fast or fast medium bowlers.
To be honest, Ishant hardly inspired much confidence in England. He looked scattered, walking around aimlessly and had the look of a bowler who was more of a visitor than the future leader of India?s new ball attack. And then I saw Ishant on the eve of the new-year Test match at Sydney. He looked the same. He had just finished practice, one of the last Indians to do so, and was aimlessly walking off the practice pitches ? not even interested in signing autographs. He still had no idea that a day into 2008 and captain Kumble would throw the new ball to him and ask him to grow up for the sake of his country.
When the touring media was told that Zaheer was going back with a heel injury, the first reaction was ?we are done?. ?We will now be thrashed in Sydney after a disastrous Boxing Day Test match at the MCG?. The apprehension was further tickled when India picked Ishant for the Test ahead of Irfan Pathan.
While India did well at Sydney, Ishant hardly set the stadium on fire. Yes, he was unlucky with the Symonds nick, which now has folk status in India?s cricket history, but it was nothing more than an average debut on Australian soil.
Perth, however, was different. Ishant, in a matter of days, had matured. He had, all of a sudden, decided to shoulder some responsibility, the responsibility of leading the attack of the most pressured and most glamourous cricket team in the world. Put bluntly ? he had decided to stand up to one of the most difficult tasks in the sporting world.
Making an absolute mockery of Ricky Ponting and his technique, Ishant Sharma was instrumental in giving India?s billion or more fans one of our best overseas victories of all time. In doing so, he had transformed himself and perhaps also the image of Indian fast bowling. We suddenly had a fast bowler, not fast medium but fast, who consistently clocked speeds of 140-145 plus, one who consistently made the opposition jump and one who looked really lethal. We had a bowler who looked ready to win us overseas Test matches with some regularity.
It has since been a fairytale. He now has a swagger in his walk, a swagger of confidence. The way he moves, talks or looks up is different. Even the way he moves his fingers through his rock star-like hair says something ? that he is Ishant Sharma, the same Ishant Sharma who has had the measure of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke, the two best batsman in the Australian team.
Ishant?s has been a quantum leap since Australia and that?s what makes inevitable a second quantum leap.
Before Perth, Ishant wasn?t a threat. People were unaware of his potential. Now the English, preparing to stand up against an Ishant onslaught, will be spending hours working out Ishant. How did a fast bowler manage to nail the Aussies and bag the man of the series award? Video analysts have been pressed into action to record each frame of his action, the break of his swing and his arm. Efforts are on to work Ishant out. This is why we need a second transformation, perhaps the final one.
If the first told the world of the arrival of a new star and if the Australia series was consolidation that Ishant is not a flashy meteor, the second will make certain that Indian fast bowling is in safe hands. With inspiration in Zaheer and back up in RP Singh, Munaf Patel and Irfan Pathan, India can even aspire to becoming a fast bowling powerhouse, a luxury she has never had in her 76 years of international cricket history.
The writer is a cricket historian