Ishant Sharma’s economy rate should be aptly called luxury rate!

Ishant Sharma conceded 30 runs in an over against Australia on Saturday in the third ODI at Mohali © AFP

Ishant Sharma is the senior-most member of the bowling unit but he has looked out-of-sorts. His recent performances against Australia have been below-par. Sarang Bhalerao goes into the analytical mode and studies Ishant’s recent performances.

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Ishant Sharma conceded 30 runs in the 48th over of the Australian innings which turned the tide in favour of the visitors. Ishant thus bowled the most expensive over by an Indian in the One-Day Internationals (ODIs), sharing the dubious record with Yuvraj Singh.

Ishant has been in the international circuit for six years. He is supposed to be the senior bowler of the side but his recent struggles with the ball is staggering and clearly hurting the team.

MS Dhoni has blamed the quality of death bowling of India and Ishant has been one of the main culprits. He has looked out-of-sorts and is battling to find rhythm.

Ishant has conceded 618 runs in the last 13 One-Day Internationals — the ICC Champions Trophy 2013, the tri-series in West Indies that followed and the on-going series against Australia. His average per scalp is 30.9 while he has conceded runs at 6.24 runs per over. It’s a misnomer to call that economy rate — it’s more appropriate to call its luxury rate!

Here’s the spell-wise analysis of Ishant’s bowling performance from ICC Champions Trophy 2013.

Ishant’s performance from the ICC Champions Trophy 2013

Percentage overs bowled and runs conceded by Ishant

(Sarang Bhalerao hails from a family of doctors, but did his engineering. He then dumped a career in IT with Infosys to follow his heart and passion and became a writer with CricketCountry. A voracious reader, Sarang aspires to beat Google with his knowledge of the game! You can follow him on Twitter here)