India pacer Ishant Sharma is in his mid-thirties at the moment but legendary India captain MS Dhoni taunts him by saying that he looks two decades older than his current age. One of the most experienced Indian pacers ever, Sharma had made his debut for India in a Test against Bangladesh over 16 years ago.
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People primarily misjudge Sharma’s age because of the fact that he has been playing the game for so long now. The tall lanky right-arm bowler had played his first Ranji Trophy match at the age of 18 and he played his first international match at the same age as well.
As far as Dhoni is concerned, he doesn’t have any wrong perception of Sharma’s age per se. It’s just that the two have known each other for years which is why the former is convinced about Sharma’s body behaving like 52 when he was 32.
MS Dhoni’s Age-Related Taunt For Ishant Sharma
Talking to Deep Dasgupta on ESPNCricinfo’s chat show Cricket Baazi, Sharma agreed that he is mentally older than his age. He was 32-year old at that time. Not just Dhoni, but his wife and Basketball player Pratima Singh also teases him for his age and calls him ‘Buddha’ (old man).
“Mahi bhai ka bhi mujhe message aata hain aur woh bhi mujhe bolte hain ‘Aur buddhe, kya kar raha hai?’ [Mahi bhai texts me and asks, ‘How are you doing, old man?’],” Ishant had said.
“Main unko bolta hun ‘Mahi bhai, main 32 saal ka hun’, toh woh kehte hain ‘Teri age 32 hai, lekin tera shareer 52 ka hai, beta’ [I tell him, ‘Mahi bhai, I am only 32.’ He replies, ‘Your age is 32 but your body is 52, son’].”
Dhoni has played a crucial part in Sharma’s career as the pacer has himself agreed that the wicket-keeper helped him in keeping his place in the Test squad a lot of times. After a brilliant initial years in his career, Sharma’s form dipped. However, under former captain Virat Kohli’s captaincy, he revived his Test cricket yet again.
Sharma is the fifth-highest Test wicket-taker in the history of Indian cricket with 311 wickets to his name. He is also the second Indian pacer after Kapil Dev to represent the nation in 100 Tests.
Ishant Sharma Performance Under MS Dhoni
Dhoni was Sharma’s third captain in his journey after Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. The pacers’ spell of 7/74 against England in the Lord’s Test in 2014 is his best performance with red-ball under Dhoni. India won that historic Test where Sharma perfectly executed the short-ball plan against the English batters.
| Format | Matches | Wickets | Average | Economy | Strike Rate | 5W | BBI |
| Test | 47 | 152 | 36.65 | 3.37 | 65.10 | 5 | 4/74 |
| ODI | 69 | 104 | 29.47 | 5.68 | 31.10 | 0 | 4/38 |
| T20I | 14 | 8 | 50 | 8.63 | 34.70 | 0 | 2/34 |
Sharma has played just 14 T20Is in his career and all of them have been under Dhoni’s leadership. He played his last white-ball match for India in 2016.
