Indian tall right-arm pacer Ishant Sharma has impressed with the ball in hand in the ongoing five-match Test series in the English tour. Former Aussie pacer Jason Gillespie has revealed that how he improved Sharma’s bowling during the County stint.

Prior to the Test series, Sharma featured in the English County cricket for Sussex where Gillespie is serving as the head coach. In the result, Ishant is currently the best Indian bowler in the ongoing Test series in the English tour and also the second most wicket-taker in the ongoing Test series.

Talking about Sharma’s improvement in bowling, Gillespie explained, “Sometimes he would stand there and stare if a decision hasn’t gone his way or he wasn’t happy with the delivery or whatever. He would slowly trudge back. It wasn’t ideal. So I would keep telling him to show some urgency. When he started to do it – that was the turning point for me, not any particular spell in a match.”

“I would keep telling him to show urgency. In county cricket, you had to bowl 96 overs in a day. So first of all, I had to sort it out in that respect. Secondly, it meant he wasn’t wasting his time thinking about irrelevant stuff.

“Get back to the top of the run up. Take a breath. Think what I am looking to achieve with this ball. What would allow me to bowl that particular delivery. Just crack on after that. And Ishant would run in and do that. No trudging, no drifting mentally, just crack on and bowl. It was good to see that he took it on board early and it showed me he cared.”

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Talking about the important changes in Ishant’s bowling in this series, one of those is bowling fuller length than usual. Recently, the Sussex skipper Ben Brown also spoke about this and credited Gillespie for that.

Talking about that, Gillespie said, “It was clear what Ishant needed to do. Sometimes, he can bowl a little bit short and little wide and not test the batsmen’s front foot defence. The length was I think due to bowling a lot in Indian conditions. Even when you are trying to hit the top of the off stump in India, you can hit a back of length because of the (lack of) bounce. The key to bowling in the UK is the length. You have to challenge the stumps. That was what we worked. He needed to get the ball fuller, inviting the batsman to play off the front foot. And get them thinking about looking towards a positive stroke on the front foot. You are then bringing in all sorts of dismissals.”

Gillespie claimed that he was impressed with Ishant for his working style.

The former Aussie pacer said, “I was impressed with his work ethic and attitude. He would ask a lot of questions and was very open to listening and taking in feedback.”

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Gillespie further added that they also worked on the seam and wrist position at release that suitable in English condition.

Gillespie added on that, “We worked on his seam and wrist position at release. The aim was not to get this ball swing in. Have an upright seam and we talked about adjustments needed and how to keep the wrists and fingers in a particular way. We also talked about how he could use the crease better – create different angles to keep the batsmen guessing.”

Watching Ishant Sharma is in top form with the ball, Gillespie feels that the Indian pacer is now playing to his strengths that provides benefit the Indian cricket team.

The Sussex coach said, “I would say he is now playing to his strengths. Sometimes you end up trying too much. He has cut out all that. He now runs in to bowl, thinking about his strengths. That’s the difference really.”