Ishant Sharma took five-for-51 in the second innings — three of those wickets, Bairstow, Stokes and Buttler, came in one over. (Source: Reuters) Ishant Sharma took five-for-51 in the second innings — three of those wickets, Bairstow, Stokes and Buttler, came in one over. (Source: Reuters)

“Take me to the restaurant Wagamama. I like their spiciest item, called the ‘firecracker’,” Ben Brown, Sussex’s captain, laughs as he recounts what happened when a few players obliged their overseas professional Ishant Sharma’s culinary request. “I don’t think he handled the spice all that well! That’s the only thing he failed at during his stint with us, to be honest.”

The story of Ishant’s success in this Test has to be traced back to his county season with Sussex, where he flourished under the careful guidance of the coach Jason Gillespie. “It was clear from the time he landed down and headed soon to a training nets that Ishant meant business. I remember he played a warm-up game early on; it was probably 5 degrees or something. Cold. But he put in a lot of overs. Same thing in the nets, he trained for hours with Jason,” Brown says.

They worked on two things in particular: The (fuller) length and the wrist position behind the ball to get it to straighten after pitching to the right-handers. “I remember Jason telling him that he should probably forget the top of the offstump stuff; instead focus on the knee-roll.” A better visual construct to focus on.

“If he had to hit knee high, then he had to get the ball fuller. That was the rationale.” They had also worked a lot with the Duke ball, used in Tests in this country. Ishant’s errors are known: a penchant to bowl a bit short than ideal length, sometimes push it a bit wider, and not test a batsman’s front-foot play.

Gillespie was ready for some mentoring, and found a willing worker in Ishant. “They would be at it for hours in the nets,” Brown says. “The key to bowling in the UK is the length. We see a lot of bowlers fall into the trap of bowling too short and not challenging the stumps enough. I think that will be Ishant’s biggest challenge,” Gillespie had said. “If he can keep the stumps in play as much as possible, he can be quite effective.”

As it turned out, he was more than effective on the third day of the Test. Either side of the lunch, he scythed through England, yanking the ball away from the left-handers.

He seemed far more upright when running in. At times, in the past, he would almost crouch ahead as if he had just dropped his keys. That imbalance was a thing of past. The hands that held the ball were above the hips – they also used to occasionally drop lower in the past, and he seemed as steady he has ever been at the time of release.

Brown, the captain, was the one who gave Ishant his county cap at Sussex. “It was a special moment for me to hand him that.” At the end of his stint, Brown remembers Ishant giving a very good speech in the dressing room. “He talked about he would cherish this memory, how he enjoyed with us, and how this experience was invaluable for his career. He also said, that he would frame the cap and put up in his house.”

Ishant now has five more reasons to give a pride of place in his home for that cap. Five England wickets, which perhaps might not have come without the experience of playing for Sussex. “He also worked hard on position of his wrist at release. He worked on the ball that held its line and got batsmen playing at the ball thinking it was going to come back and hit the stump,” Gillespie had said recently. “and we spoke about bowling from different spots on the crease to create different angles.”

Through his career, his wrists and fingers have messed around the ball. Sometimes, behind the seam, sometimes, almost sideways, as if he was pushing the ball out. There was no erratic extremes on view here at Edgbaston.

His most dangerous ball was the one was delivered from around the stumps, cutting away from the left handers Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, and Jos Butler. All they do was get sucked into a fatal push. It was all simple: There was no mysterious plan. It was all self-evident. The success depended on the execution.

The replays showed great wrist-work. There was no attempt to bang the ball on to the deck. Instead, it was loose and supple, and he would whip them out of his fingers. The ball, with a proud seam tilted towards slip, would fly towards a full length on the stumps and would seam away, squaring up the left-handers one by one. Firecrackers, too spicy for the English to handle. Wagamama chefs too would agree.

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