Ranji Trophy: Shivam’s five-for comes after going through the grind to play red-ball cricket again

New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) During day three’s play of the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, the small section of fans in the Gautam Gambhir and Mohinder Amarnath stands were making cheers of bowling being given to Virat Kohli when it was clear that his second chance with the bat won’t come.

But Kohli’s turn with the ball wouldn’t come as Delhi’s bowlers, led by Shivam Sharma’s 5-33, bundled out Railways for a paltry 114 to win by an innings and 19 runs. Though the bonus point win wasn’t enough for Delhi to enter the knockouts, they can still take some positives from their campaign – one of them being Shivam, whose third five-wicket haul in first-class cricket came in his comeback season.

“As a cricketer, struggle is a part of life. Talking about the comeback, it’s been in the making for two years. In my mind, when I was away for two years, I wanted to come back at any cost by playing in local tournaments, training, and practices. This was in my mind, as I wanted to perform well. I didn’t think about selection. It was my job to perform in local tournaments. My focus was to perform well and come back,” he said to reporters at the end of the match.

In his time away from the game, Shivam recalled the work put in the last two-three years to get back into Delhi team’s red-ball scheme of things. Apart from improving his off-spin, which is the stock delivery, Shivam participated in Goswami and Ganesh Dutt tournaments, Lala Raghubir Hot weather competition and Gold Cup in Dehradun.

If this wasn’t enough, Shivam also featured in J.P. Atray tournament, competitions in Maharashtra like the Aurangabad Premier League, traveling to play games in Gujarat, Calcutta and playing two-three tournaments in Assam. With his coach Naresh Jain sir providing valuable help, Shivam also moved away from bowling too fast, something which came into his game due to a healthy diet of playing T20 games.

“In the last few years, I have travelled a lot to play and gain experiences in different places and now I think I am getting the benefits. I have done more single wicket bowling practice, and bowled a lot of balls in a day. Because it is days cricket, you have to bowl long spells, so I did a lot of spot bowling.”

“Yes, it (playing T20 matches) did have an effect on my bowling. I have been playing T20 cricket for the last 6-7 years, and began bowling faster, so I got used to it. Days cricket doesn’t work in Delhi, so had to work specially hard for that to be capable of bowling 20-40 overs. For the last two years, I had to work hard to curb my way of bowling faster.”

Ahead of day three’s play, with evidence of variable bounce in the previous day, Shivam spoke to bowling coach V Aravind and head coach Sarandeep Singh to decide on a strategy and get a favourable result for Delhi. It was decided that Shivam would bowl with a faster pace to get batters out.

It did wonders as four of his five wickets in the second innings were left-handers. While Vivek Singh and Mohammad Saif were also guilty of poor shot selection, Karn Sharma and Rahul Sharma couldn’t do much about their dismissals to Shivam.

“I spoke to them (Aravind and Sarandeep) this morning before play began in terms of what I can do on this pitch? The ball was keeping low in some parts of day two as well. So, I spoke to them about it and they told me to keep the pace fast, because the bounce on the wicket was low and there was some wear and tear on the pitch too. Also, we were warming up our bowling before the match and speaking to the coaches helped a lot,” he added.

Shivam’s performance in derailing Railways’ second innings is something which Delhi selectors will think of when selecting the team for the next domestic season, especially this coming after Nishunk Birla of Chandigarh and Saurashtra’s widely experienced Ravindra Jadeja had outbowled Delhi’s tweakers.

Shivam was optimistic in his view that Delhi’s other spinners, including their leading wicket-taker Ayush Badoni are in their learning stage and will come good soon. “There was a little problem in the spin bowling department because no spinners took wickets in heaps.”

“There was a good pitch in the last match, and could have done well, but we are learning slowly as the spinners are young and are in their learning phase. So I think there is potential and that they are bowling well. Though they are not performing in the match, they are good bowlers and we will learn more.”

“The way he has performed, Ayush has good potential. He has a good idea of bowling, and looks like a street-smart cricketer. He doesn’t have the ability to spin a lot, but he has a good off-spinner mind.”

With Ravichandran Ashwin retiring, India are on the lookout for their next off-spinner in Tests and Shivam thinks the cupboard isn’t bare. “There are good off-spinners in India right now. Tanush Kotian is doing well, and Washington Sundar is there too. So, there is scope for off spin bowling in the Indian team. But I don’t think about the future. I play one match at a time. I don’t think about the next match, as I look to perform in the games I play.”

He signed off by conceding the match’s swift end took by surprise, but is now pleased with finding his good red-ball bowling rhythm on a day where fans wished for Kohli to bowl. “No, I didn’t think that the match would finish so soon. I thought that we will get a good result in our favour.”

“But I didn’t think that it would finish so soon. Rhythm is very important. I have played three matches, starting from the game against Jharkhand. I have got a rhythm now in bowling. If you play continuously, you get a rhythm.”

–IANS

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