Never saw that during my time: Ishant Sharma rejects workload talks

Ishant Sharma (Source: Twitter)

India's long-time Test workhorse Ishant Sharma has been out of action since November 2021 where he last played against New Zealand. The right-armer was India's go-to pacer in his prime days being a genuine enforcer with the red cherry.

The Delhi-born, in an interview with Sportstar, was recently asked whether Indian pacers are suffering from an injury from time to time because of poor workload management. To which, he replied that it doesn't matter because, during his time, they never cared about such things.

Further, he was of the view that if someone is used to bowling long spells, then for them it won't be a problem to put in the hard yards for long duration continuously. Ishant recalled his story from Ranji days, mentioning that his coach used to make him bowl in the afternoon and will ask him to bowl until sunset.

"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."

Sharma holds the distinct record of being only the second pacer after Zaheer Khan to feature in 100 Test matches for India.

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