A veteran of 105 Tests, Ishant Sharma remained unsold in Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction. Ahead of the mini-auction on December 23, Ishant has said that he does not care about it anymore and has and wants to play the game for as long as he can.
“To be honest, I have stopped thinking about all these things. Once I go back home, I have my family, they love me. I have my dogs, they don’t really care what I do on a field. I have my wife, my parents and my friends, they just see me as Ishant and not as a cricketer,” Ishant told Sportstar.
“I just enjoy my life. I don’t care about whether I am wanted or unwanted anywhere. I am still playing this game because I love playing cricket. When I started bowling fast, I did so because I enjoyed it, not because someone wanted or someone disliked me. Honestly, I don’t care about all these things and don’t want to care about it either.”
Ishant made his last IPL appearance in 2021 where he played three games whereas in 2020 edition he just got one game.
The 34-year-old was indirectly critical of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) workload management as well for the fast bowlers when he was asked about what advice he would give to a young pacer.
“The only thing I would say right now is: “do not think too much about the workload”. That’s a new term that’s come up in recent times, especially for fast bowlers. I never saw something like that during my international stint. When I started playing, my coach was an old-fashioned coach who would give me a ball in hand at 1 o’clock in the afternoon and we would go on till the sunset. That’s how I could bowl long spells when I made my debut in Ranji Trophy and later on for India. If you want to improve, the only thing you can do is to keep bowling.”
Recently, Ishant could not bowl a single over due to an injury in the fourth innings of Delhi's clash against Maharashtra in ongoing Ranji Trophy 2022-23. If Ishant regains full fitness, the tall pacer will be seen in action again when Delhi take on Assam in Guwahati in their second Group B encounter.
