Barbados, July 2: Leading the Indian pace attack in the absence of Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma was adjudged Man-of-the-Match for his fantastic 10-wicket haul against the West Indies in the second Test match here. In the process, he became the fourth youngest bowler to reach the milestone of 100 Test wickets and the seventh Indian pacer to claim 10 wickets in a match. Interestingly, he reached each of the two landmarks with the wicket of West Indies skipper Darren Sammy.
Sharma’s contribution was crucial in keeping the rain-affected match alive, giving India the chance to push for a result.
Excerpts from his media-interaction after a well-fought match:
On rating his performance in this match
I can’t forget this kind of bowling. I don’t think I have ever done this kind of bowling in my whole career till now. It’s a great pleasure for me to be bowling the way I am bowling right now.
On whether he enjoyed bowling on the surface at Kensington Oval
Yeah, the wicket had uneven bounce in the first innings so bowling in the right areas [was enough as] the ball would do [the] talking. I don’t [have] to do much, don’t need to do too much experimenting with the bowling.
On being the lead bowler in the absence of Zaheer Khan
Whatever Zak pa [Zaheer Khan] has told me, I am just doing the same thing with [Abhimanyu] Mithun and PK [Praveen Kumar]. I don’t need to tell PK how he needs to bowl because he has also played so much domestic cricket and everything. Mithun is a new guy but I think, he knows about his body, about his bowling as well so I don’t think I need to tell [them] much like the way Zak told me about things.
