After Shikhar Dhawan’s shoulder injury, India suffered another injury blow in the form of Ishant Sharma who hurt his ankle during the ongoing Ranji Trophy game between Delhi and Vidarbha at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium.
The injury happened in the fifth over of Vidarbha’s second innings when he went for an appeal against Faiz Fazal and in the process twisted his ankle and fell on the ground with agonizing pain. The medical team of the team had to come out and Ishant had to be taken out of the ground.
The injury has cast doubts on his participation in the upcoming series against New Zealand. Although, the good thing is that Ishant Sharma only played Test cricket for India so he has an ample amount of time to recover. However, Delhi’s manager Manoj Kapoor has revealed that Ishant has got swelling on the ankle and an MRI has been done for the same. The cricketer has to wait for the reports and only then, it would be known how serious the injury is.
“He [Ishant] has got swelling on the ankle. Sharma was taken for an MRI scan right after the game. The report will be available on Tuesday. But it does not look too serious,” Manoj Kapoor said.
The cricketer from Delhi will not be taking the field for the rest of the match against Vidarbha and will be traveling to Bengaluru for treatment at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). This is the second time in recent times that he will be heading back to NCA for treatment. He had niggle after the series against Bangladesh and was making a comeback in the ongoing game in India’s premier domestic tournament.
Ishant will be one of the main striking bowlers for India in the series against the Black Caps. He has been a force to be reckoned with in red-ball cricket and will be hoping to continue his golden run in the upcoming series too.
The player is also really close to achieving a personal milestone. He is just 4 matches away from playing 100 Test matches for Team India. Ishant would be India’s second pacer after Kapil Dev to achieve that massive feat. Dev played 131 Tests during his illustrious career.
The first Test match between New Zealand and India will be played on February 21 in Wellington while the second and final Test will commence from February 29 in Christchurch.
