Indian veteran pacer Ishant Sharma has been highly criticised for his performance by former Indian bowler Raju Kulkarni ahead of the second Test in Centurion. Kulkarni alleged that Ishant has been too erratic and has failed to lead the country’s pace bowling attack.
Speaking at an event, the former speedster said that it’s amazing that Sharma has served the Indian team and picked a good number of wickets but never led the pace department from the front. He said,
He [Ishant Sharma] is too erratic, every-time he comes with new techniques, strategies, and that itself is very confusing for him. He has played 79 Test matches for India and it’s amazing. But I don’t think he has ever led from the front and that has been a problem with him.
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Kulkarni also spoke about Sharma’s performance in the recently concluded Test series against Sri Lanka. He said,
In the last two series, he (Sharma) acted very stupidly, reacted to the situations badly, and I think every time he came out with something different and that is not making him very consistent.
Ishant Sharma is currently the most experienced pacer in the Indian Test squad. He made his debut against Bangladesh in the year 2007. Till date, Ishant has played 79 Tests and 80 ODIs and has taken 226 and 115 wickets respectively.
Kulkarni, on the other hand, also praised the current form of the Indian pace attack. He said,
The current scenario is very good as far as pace bowling is concerned. We have enough resources and good bowlers. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and all (others) are very talented and they have proved in the last Test match (against South Africa), given a wicket like that they can rip apart any team.
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The Indian cricket team lost the first Test against South Africa in Capetown by 72 runs. The next match is scheduled to take place on January 13 at Centurion.
(With inputs from PTI)
