While the experienced tall Indian right-arm pacer Ishant Sharma bowled impressively in the first Test against England at Edgbaston (Birmingham), Sussex skipper Ben Brown has opened up that how the team coach Jason Gillespie worked hard for the determined Sharma’s improvement.
Prior to the five-match Test series on this England tour, Ishant Sharma took the crucial preparation by featuring in the English County cricket for the first time where he played for Sussex.
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Sussex skipper Ben Brown revealed that Ishant had cleared his intention for the County stint soon his arrival in the UK.
Brown told Indian Express, “It was clear from the time he landed down and headed soon to a training nets that Ishant meant business. I remember he played a warm-up game early on; it was probably 5 degrees or something. Cold. But he put in a lot of overs. Same thing in the nets, he trained for hours with Jason.”
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In the Edgbaston Test, while Ishant had a first innings bowling figure of 17-1-46-1, his second innings bowling was very impressive as the figure was 13-0-51-5.
Brown also claimed that Ishant worked with the coach Jason Gillespie in basically two things – the fuller length and the wrist-position behind the ball to get it to straighten after pitching to the right-handed batsmen.
Talking about that, Brown said, “I remember Jason telling him that he should probably forget the top of the off-stump stuff; instead focus on the knee-roll.”
Brown further added, “If he had to hit knee high, then he had to get the ball fuller. That was the rationale.”
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Brown feels Ishant’s biggest challenge was bowling too short which is not a helpful method for the bowlers in the UK condition as it doesn’t challenge the stumps enough.
He said more about Ishant and Gillespie, “They would be at it for hours in the nets. The key to bowling in the UK is the length. We see a lot of bowlers fall into the trap of bowling too short and not challenging the stumps enough. I think that will be Ishant’s biggest challenge.”
