India fast bowler Ishant Sharma is on the verge of joining the elite players in an exclusive club when he will take the field against New Zealand in the second Test at Hagley Oval in Christchurch which will be starting Saturday. Virat Kohli-led India faced a 10-wicket defeat in the two-match series in Wellington. However, there was one bright spot for India in the form of pace-spearhead Ishant Sharma, who picked up another five-wicket haul in the first innings to bring India back into the game.
Ishant Sharma is just three wickets away from becoming the sixth Indian bowler to take 300 Test wickets. He will also become just the third Indian pace bowler to achieve this milestone after Kapil Dev and Zaheer Khan. The other Indian bowlers to reach these milestones are Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, and Ravichandran Ashwin. While Anil Kumble has a whopping 619 wickets, Kapil Dev and Harbhajan Singh have 434 and 417 scalps respectively.
Ravichandran Ashwin has 365 scalps in his name so far who is currently active as well. But Zaheer Khan picked up 311 wickets. However, if Ishant Sharma managed to achieve this milestone, he will become the slowest (in terms of Tests) bowler to reach 300 Test wickets since this will be his 98th Test and he will surpass former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori in the list, who took 94 Tests to achieve this feat in his career.
Ishant has managed to bounce back in his career and has been in good form since 2018. Moreover, he has bagged 71 wickets since then at an average of 19.14 which is the second-best among all the pacers with a minimum of 50 wickets. Recently, he earned the praise from legendary Aussie pacer Glenn McGrath who referred to the pacer’s comeback into the Indian team as ‘impressive’.
“Ishant has a lot of experience, the way he’s a comeback in the last couple years, it been impressive. I thought his career might have been finished at the international level, but he has reinvented himself and he is bowling well,” the former Australian bowling great was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.