Ishant Sharma

Ishant Sharma benefits from Care in the Community

India are right to persevere with spindly, lank-haired Rubik’s Cube swallower, Ishant Sharma, but of late it’s seemed a bit like a Care in the Community obligation rather than a forward-looking show of faith.

There comes a point where you’re not encouraging a player, you’re just putting him on a stage and telling him to dance with his trousers round his ankles. It seems like every time we’ve checked Sharma’s bowling figures in the last year, he’s taken no wickets and gone for six an over.

But lo, he’s just taken three Aussie wickets. The trousers are back on.

The Indian bowling defence

Well it isn’t a bowling attack, is it? India have got a medium-pacer called Abhimanyu Mithun opening the bowling against Sri Lanka. We hadn’t even heard of him until this morning.

Muralitharan said this week that Harbhajan Singh was the only person who could challenge his Test wickets record. At the time this seemed ludicrous, being as Harbhajan’s over 400 wickets adrift, but judging by India’s bowlers in this Test, Harbhajan’s going to need a bigger belt if he’s going to get all the overs he’s going to have to bowl under it.

Three years ago, we wrote about how India were blessed with young fast bowlers. Through inconsistent selection, fitness problems, complacency and a build ‘em up-knock ‘em down media, they’ve all fallen away.

The one bowler who does look determined and who has been given selectorial support is Ishant Sharma who’s currently wicketless and going at nearly six an over in a Test where the medium-pace debutant is conceding three an over.

The four best bowlers over the next five years

Picking the bowlers was much harder than picking the batsmen and all-rounders. We’re not going to pretend that we’re 100% happy with what we’ve come up with because that would be dishonest and we save the dishonesty for getting out of social events.

Dale Steyn, South Africa, age 26

We’ve still not quite worked out how someone so spindly can be so quick. The fastest bowlers do tend to be whippy, flexible beasts, but even allowing for that, Steyn still looks a bit malnourished. Being quick AND being able to swing the ball makes him more rounded than other bowlers.

Mohammad Asif, Pakistan, 26

There are a lot of variables here. As long as Mohammad Asif can stay fit and stay out of trouble and as long as Pakistan actually get to play against other people; as long as all that happens he’ll take wickets by the big-receptacle-load.

Ajantha Mendis, Sri Lanka, 24

You have to do something a bit mental to get batsmen out on today’s pitches. Even if people work out the mental deliveries Mendis uses at present, he seems like the type who’d just invent another one. Will get lots of wickets with slow, straight deliveries that will confuse batsmen predicting sorcery.

Ishant Sharma, India, 21

Has been a bit ropey of late, but anyone who can make mincemeat out of Ricky Ponting when they’re 19 doesn’t need to improve too much. Ridiculously, he’s still only 21.

Also, just a note to say that the bowler we’re perhaps most excited about, Mohammad Aamer, is more of a bowler for the next 15 years, not the next five. We’re giving him time.

As for the Aussies, they’re all good and all about the right age, but none really stands out. It’s more that we couldn’t pick one in particular than that we couldn’t pick any.

Ishant Sharma’s hair

‘I’m gangly, awkward-looking and appear to be halfway through swallowing a Rubik’s cube – how could I make myself look worse?’

This, presumably, is the thinking behind Ishant Sharma’s strange, effeminate mane. Good bowler, great slower ball, but it’s a dire situation indeed when going back to a mullet would be a wise move.

Who are India’s best fast bowlers?

It’s great to have strength in depth, but surely you want some idea who your best bowlers are. India have had five quick bowlers performing well on this tour alone. The picture’s murkier than our imaginary, more colourful past.

Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan provided some sort of freakish left-arm swing roadshow early in the tour. Now it’s the right-handers’ turn.

Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth dispatched an Australian one-day line-up starting Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Clarke, Symonds, Hussey for just 159. By all accounts it was the kind of pitch that brings the bowlers sandwiches and makes their beds it’s so generous, but you’ve still got to do ‘the business’ and Sharma suited-up and shook hands.

So where are we? India’s young fast bowlers are still falling over each other trying to prove that they’re the best of the bunch, while simultaneously failing to appear in more than three successive matches without getting injured. It’s chaos. It’s delicious, overwhelming, unregulated chaos out of which something wonderful keeps appearing.

That’s how we remember India as a place. It’s strangely apt.