Ishant should get to bowl substantial number of overs, feels Harbhajan Singh

Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh feels that the most experienced Indian pacer Ishant Sharma is unwantedly being over criticised. He feels, that the number of overs he gets to bowl in a Test match in India is too less to make an impact.

Ishant has so far played 72 Test matches and has managed to claim 209 wickets in his career. These are not poor numbers as far as the statistics are concerned for a pace bowler from the sub-continent, where most of the pitches are usually tailor-made for spinners.

“People criticise Ishant for having played nearly 70 Test matches (72 Tests) with barely 200 plus (209) wickets. But has anyone cared to find out how many overs Ishant had bowled in India? And how many overs with new ball and how many with old one which reverses?” Harbhajan questioned.

He lamented that Ishant is a workhorse and said that the lack of overs with the new ball is what hurting his figures. “And why Ishant has not bowled much is because of having such wickets where you need the spin in the first hour. If he doesn’t get to bowl with the new ball when the seam is hard and new, then we are being unfair to Ishant, who is such a workhorse.”

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“If we can make a statement of intent in this series, it will only help us when we travel abroad next time,” summed-up the 36-year-old.

India will take on New Zealand in the first Test match of the three-match Test series on September 22 in Kanpur. Team India has named pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, and Umesh Yadav apart from Ishant in the line-up and it will be interesting to see how many overs they got to bowl and how much of an impact the seamers have in the Test series.