Ishant Sharma completes 250 wickets in Test Cricket
Indian pacer Ishant Sharma completed 250 wickets in Test cricket during the fourth game of the series against England played at The Ageas Bowl, Southampton. He trapped England Captain Joe Root leg before wicket with an inswing delivery to provide India a much-needed breakthrough.
Sharma completed the milestone in the 86th game after getting rid of Joe Root with inswing delivery. He is third pace bowler to reach the landmark after Zaheer Khan (311 wickets) and Kapil Dev (434 wickets).
The 30-year old made his debut in 2007 against Bangladesh at Dhaka. He was inconsistent in his early part of his career and was largely looked as back-up seamer in the setup. The turning point came for Ishant Sharma when Virat Kohli became Test captain of Indian cricket team.
Kohli has opted to go with an aggressive approach in Test cricket and also advocated to field five bowlers in order to win games of cricket. Ishant Sharma has been impressive under Kohli’s captaincy and picked up 63 wickets in 25 matches at an average of 30.52.
| Player | Matches | Wkts |
| Anil Kumble | 132 | 619 |
| Kapil Dev | 131 | 434 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 103 | 417 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin* | 62* | 324* |
| Zaheer Khan | 92 | 311 |
| Bishen Singh Bedi | 67 | 266 |
| Ishant Sharma* | 86* | 250* |
Sharma also added another milestone to his name and completed 50 wickets against England in Test cricket. He has picked up 50 wickets in 16 matches against England. He holds impressive numbers against New Zealand with 30 wickets in 6 games at an average of 25.63. The lanky fast bowler has taken 36 wickets against Sri Lanka and 35 wickets against West Indies. Sharma has played only one game against arch-rivals Pakistan in Test cricket.
He will be keen to continue his good form in the remaining game of the Test series. Sharma has picked up 15 wickets so far in the ongoing series against England. He has moved the ball both ways and has provided breakthroughs for India in this five-match Test series.
