Ishant Sharma- Should he be persisted with even after a decade of inconsistency?

[BCCI]

Firstly I have to say there has not been a bigger waste of an investment in cricket history than this guy.Made his debut in 2007 ,its been a decade now and still there is palpable lack of consistency.He weirdly always gave this feeling of being non-threatening and incapable of picking wickets since his debut and amazingly it still exists after a COMPLETE DECADE in intl. cricket.Same old flaws of wrong wrist positioning come up every now n then and that is something you do not want to see from the spearhead of a young bowling attack even after playing so much cricket.

 

So should he be discarded at this juncture of Indian cricket,when apparently lots of new fast bowlers are coming up and most of them deserve a chance at the highest level or should he still be persisted with as he is 28 at the moment ,which I guess is considered peak for fast bowlers and may still be an asset for Indian cricket?

[BeautifulGame]

 

Ishant is pretty good and much better than the likes of Umesh away from home .It's in India and other flat conditions like Australia he struggles badly .

 

So persist with him for away tours and don't select in Indian conditions.

[express bowling]

11 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Ishant is pretty good and much better than the likes of Umesh away from home .I

 

Umesh  has never played any test match  in England, South Africa and New Zealand.... so can't be compared

 

He did marginally better than Ishant on the last tour to the WI

 

There is a good chance that the newly accurate Umesh will out-bowl Ishant out of Aisa too.

Edited February 28, 2017 by express bowling

[rkt.india]

6 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Ishant is pretty good and much better than the likes of Umesh away from home .It's in India and other flat conditions like Australia he struggles badly .

 

So persist with him for away tours and don't select in Indian conditions.

Umesh has played to my memory 4 test matches overseas which you could call non-flat pitches, 2 in Aus in 2012, 1 in SL and one in WI. He took 12 wickets in Aus in 2 tests, did poorly in SL, and took 5 in 1 WI test. So, did well in 3 out of 4 tests. Ishant played in all those games too and was poor in Aus, poor in that WI test, did well in SL. So he did well in 1 out of those 4 tests. 

[Forever Indian]

I also think if Umesh can bowl as well as he is doing recently, he will do very well overseas also. He should also learn when to bowl bouncers to get batsman on backfoot which is very important to get edges off your length balls.

[Pollack]

18 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Ishant is pretty good and much better than the likes of Umesh away from home .It's in India and other flat conditions like Australia he struggles badly .

 

So persist with him for away tours and don't select in Indian conditions.

Ishant doesn't have much role in Srilanka and Bangladesh.Mostly spinners do the job.So he can be replaced by any decent pace bowler in these places.He is poor surprisingly(?)at Australia.He did nothing special in West Indies. So even overseas he has utility only in NZ and Eng. I am damn sure he will be bad in South Africa .

Edited February 28, 2017 by Pollack

[BeautifulGame]

Umesh has played to my memory 4 test matches overseas which you could call non-flat pitches, 2 in Aus in 2012, 1 in SL and one in WI. He took 12 wickets in Aus in 2 tests, did poorly in SL, and took 5 in 1 WI test. So, did well in 3 out of 4 tests. Ishant played in all those games too and was poor in Aus, poor in that WI test, did well in SL. So he did well in 1 out of those 4 tests. 

 

Umesh played two tests in the west indies tour and didn't take any wickets in the 2nd test.

 

5 wickets in 4 innings isn't impressive at best mediocre.

[Forever Indian]

To me Ishant is 4th in the pegging line even for overseas tests. Shami, Umesh and Bhuvi are before him unless we play on bouncy surfaces with no lateral movement.

[BeautifulGame]

Ishant doesn't have much role in Srilanka and Bangladesh.Mostly spinners do the job.So he can be replaced by any decent pace bowler in these places.He is poor surprisingly(?)at Australia.He did nothing special in West Indies. So even overseas he has utility only in NZ and Eng. I am damn sure he will be bad in South Africa .

 

Maybe u need to check the scoreboards in the Sri Lanka tour.

 

In the 3rd test he had a match figure of 8 for 86 which was the decider.

[rkt.india]

10 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Umesh played two tests in the west indies tour and didn't take any wickets in the 2nd test.

 

5 wickets in 4 innings isn't impressive at best mediocre.

2nd test was played on a flat pitch. I am talking about pitches which are not flat.

[BeautifulGame]

2nd test was played on a flat pitch. I am talking about pitches which are not flat.

 

He doesn't play much in helpful.wickets because he generally isn't good with the new ball as we say in Sri Lanka .

 

Kohli didn't even pick him for the 3rd test there.

 

If anything flat wickets with low bounce are the ones that suit him the most.

[Pollack]

13 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Maybe u need to check the scoreboards in the Sri Lanka tour.

[rkt.india]

11 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

He doesn't play much in helpful.wickets because he generally isn't good with the new ball as we say in Sri Lanka .

 

Kohli didn't even pick him for the 3rd test there.

 

If anything flat wickets with low bounce are the ones that suit him the most.

how do you know without him being played that is not good with new ball? 

[BeautifulGame]

how do you know without him being played that is not good with new ball? 

 

Because even in ODI s he regularly wastes the new ball .

[BCCI]

So you would not play him in India but will keep him for overseas tours.Any valid reason for that and will that not be unfair on new upcoming bowlers?

[BeautifulGame]

So you would not play him in India but will keep him for overseas tours.Any valid reason for that and will that not be unfair on new upcoming bowlers?

 

Who r the new bowlers we have tried ? Am i missing something ?

 

Of course I would prefer to new bowlers .Apart from Shami (and Bhuvi on helpful wickets ) none are good enough bowlers .But we haven't tried any of them in the recent past .Doubt we will try anyone before the SA and SRL series .

[Sidhoni]

Has best average overall among our pacers in last 3 years in tests, only by a small margin though with Shami as close second and much better SR than Ishant.

 

But away from home he has both better avg and SR than Shami, SR is best in fact and avg is second to Bhuvi.

 

He should definitely play overseas but at home currently if everyone is fit Shami and Umesh/Bhuvi are our best. If Shami is injured and pitch is not rank turner we should try Aniket.

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Sidhoni

[goose]

A couple of points. First why do we assume/tolerate that the 3rd seamer is worse than the 1st and 2nd seamers? On seaming wickets where the single spinner is useless until day 4/5 the third seamer has to be a top performer. Second no Indian seamer has ever looked a world beater from day one. To say there is nobody pushing Ishant for a place is pure folly. 

[SUMO]

he is eternal...let him play 100 tests before turning 30 that too as a fast bowler
its doesn't matter if he will be worst ever to do so

[BCCI]

1 hour ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Who r the new bowlers we have tried ? Am i missing something ?

 

Of course I would prefer to new bowlers .Apart from Shami (and Bhuvi on helpful wickets ) none are good enough bowlers .But we haven't tried any of them in the recent past .Doubt we will try anyone before the SA and SRL series .

Exactly,why not try someone new who may have something different and better to offer than rinse-repeat Ishant.Whole premise of the topic is if even after 10 years the bowler is not your premier bowler,whats the point in selecting him again n again?

 

All hopes on Kohli to make a change and introduce new crop of bowlers.