England vs India: Playing county made huge difference, says Ishant Sharma

Indian fast bowler Ishant Sharma credited his county stint with Sussex for the impeccable success he achieved during England’s second innings, taking a 5-fer to hand India a greater chance of victory in the first Test at Edgbaston.

“Playing County made a huge difference. In a way, I was disappointed (not playing IPL 2018), but it was good for me. I played for Sussex and bowled with the Dukes ball. One good thing was although I only played four matches, there were overs behind me, I bowled around 150-200 overs (he bowled 114.3 overs in the first-class games). I played ODIs also, so the experience was really good,” said the lanky fast bowler.

Sharma, 29, produced a wonderful display of how disciplined fast bowling could fetch wickets, even without any extraordinary efforts. After being largely ineffective while bowling over the wicket in the English first innings, Sharma decided to come round-the-wicket for the second and it worked wonders for the team.

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His efforts of constantly keeping the ball at the stump line, while also occasionally sending one that left the left-handers and got into the right-handed batsmen. It paid dividends as Sharma finished the second innings with 5/51 including three wickets in a single over. Coming to bowl in the 31^st over, Sharma first cramped Dawid Malan and Ben Stokes (both left-handers) for room and both of them perished edging one to slips in the second and fourth ball of the over.

“From the beginning, the plan was for me to bowl to left-handers. The plan was to bowl from over the stumps, but if the ball started to swing, I would immediately switch to around the stumps,” he said talking of him moving the ball away from left-handers.

Then returning after lunch, Ishant who had two balls left, got the wicket of Jos Buttler in a similar fashion in the final delivery of the over.

Sharma, whose best Test figures of 7/74 came against England at Lord’s four years ago, made excellent use of his knowledge of the English conditions. He playing for Sussex had taken a five-wicket haul in the same ground against Warwickshire.

He has always bowled well in the longest format of the game but not taking many wickets has led the fans into calling him a defensive bowler and Sharma said he was tired of the tag.

“Actually, I got tired of the tag. I am bowling well but my wicket column has always not been very good. It feels very good because I put in a lot of work,” he said at the end of third day’s play. “Playing for your country and taking five wickets, that too in the second innings, feels nice.”

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Needing 193 to win, India is currently struggling at 110/5 with two days of play still remaining. The target is achievable but lack of wickets may hurt India’s chances of securing a victory. Sharma though feels that it is easy to chase down the target.

“Losing five wickets does not mean much. You saw how we got their batsmen out quickly, but one partnership does happen. So, this small chase can happen quite easily.”

Virat Kohli (43) and Dinesh Karthik (18) were at the crease at the end of third day’s play.