Introduction
Born on 2nd September 1988 in Delhi, Ishant Sharma has been playing cricket for India since 2007. He was also the most expensive bowler in the debut season of the IPL (Indian Premier League). His nickname is Lambu (meaning someone who is tall in Hindi).
Ishant Sharma Domestic Career
-
First-class
He has played 143 first-class matches to date for Delhi since 2006 in which he has taken 472 wickets. His best performance has been 7/24. His economy rate is also decent is about 3 runs per over.
-
List A
In 123 List A matches, he managed to take 178 wickets. Also, his best performance has been 5/21. The last List A match that he played was in 2018.
-
T20
In 138 domestic T20 games, he has secured 111 wickets. His best bowling performance in this case stands at an impressive 5/12.
Ishant Sharma International Career
-
ODI
Though he has been part of the Indian ODI team since 2007, he has played just 80 matches. In these 80 games, he has taken 115 wickets with a career-best of 4/34.
-
Test
To date, he has represented India in 99 test cricket matches. He has taken 300+ wickets and had the best performance of 7/74.
-
T20
From 2008 to 2013 he played 14 T20I matches and took just 8 wickets. His best bowling performance was 2/34.
Ishant Sharma Test Debut
He made his test debut on 25th June 2007 against the Bangladesh cricket team. In the first innings of the Bangladesh team, Sharma took a wicket by dismissing Mashrafe Murtaza. While in the second innings, he wasn’t able to take any.
Bangladesh won the toss and decided to field first. This didn’t turn out to be a great decision as India decimated the Bangladesh bowling attack by scoring a sky-high score of 610 runs. Four batsmen made centuries and another one made a half-century.
The first innings of the Bangladeshi team ended at a score of just 118 runs. Six of their batsmen couldn’t even score more than 10 runs. Shakib Al Hasan was the top scorer with a score of 30 runs. They had to follow on and then too they just made 253 runs and lost the match by an innings and 239 runs.
Ishant Sharma ODI Debut
Ishant played his first ODI on 29th June 2007 against the South African team at Belfast, UK. He wasn’t able to take a wicket and was also quite expensive (economy rate of 5.43). He was also the only bowler to have bowled 2 no balls.
India had won the toss and had decided to bowl first. South Africa scored just 226 runs and Morne van Wyk (82 runs) and Mark Boucher (55 runs) were the top scorers. JP Duminy also contributed 40 runs. Yuvraj Singh dismissed three batsmen and was the most successful Indian bowler.
India managed to chase the set target when just five more balls were left. Sachin Tendulkar played a match-winning inning of 93 runs and he was assisted by Yuvraj Singh (49 runs) and Sourav Ganguly (42 runs). Although, Sourav Ganguly did play a somewhat slow inning. Anyway, India won and that was perhaps the great thing for Ishant Sharma in his debut match.
Ishant Sharma T20 Debut
His first T20 match happened on 1st February 2008 against the Australian cricket team. While he didn’t take a single wicket, the match ended in a disaster for the Indian cricket team. India had won the toss and elected to bat first. Little did they know that it was going to be a bad decision.
The Indian team got out after scoring just 74 runs. Only Irfan Pathan crossed the 10 runs mark (he scored 26 runs). Rest were all dismissed before they reached that. While MS Dhoni did play 27 balls, he was dismissed by DJ Hussey.
Nathan Bracken took 3 wickets while Adam Voges secured a couple. Australia reached the set target of 75 runs in just 11.2 overs. Skipper Michael Clarke (37 runs) and Adam Gilchrist (25 runs) were the top scorers. It was a catastrophic defeat for the Indians.
Ishant Sharma IPL Career
From 2008 to 2010, he represented Kolkata Knight Riders. While for the next couple of seasons, he played for the Deccan Chargers (now defunct). Then again for the next 3 years (2013 – 2015), he was acquired by the Sunrisers Hyderabad. For the 2016 season, he was with Rising Pune Supergiants.
In 2017, he played for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings). He wasn’t able to play in IPL 2018. Then in 2019, he joined the Delhi Capitals squad and is a part of the team since then.
Ishant Sharma Wife
Ishant Sharma is currently married to Pratima Singh. She is also a sportsperson and plays basketball for the Indian team. She is from Jaunpur and was born on 6th February 1990. Her two sisters have also represented India at the international level.
She also has about 111 thousand followers on Instagram and has a verified account. She regularly posts interesting photos in which Ishant also appears. Before getting married, they were a long-time couple. They first met in the year 2011 at a basketball match. They got married on 10th December 2016 in Gurugram.
Famous Indian cricketers MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh also attended the ceremony. Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt came too. The couple doesn’t have a child yet. It is rarely seen that a cricketer goes on to marry another sportsperson. Hopefully, both of them will have a terrific married life in future.
Ishant Sharma 100th Test Match
Ishant Sharma becomes the second Indian bowler to play 100 test matches for India. However, the first one was none other than Mr. Kapil Dev.
