Ishant Sharma attributed his good showing on Day 2 of the first Test against the West Indies to his pace bowling partner Jasprit Bumrah's advice of trying cross-seam stuff.
The senior India pacer’s late burst broke the back of the West Indies’ batting, taking three wickets from his final three overs to complete his ninth five-wicket haul in Tests.
The West Indies trail by 108 runs with just two first innings wickets in hand.
"There was rain and after that the ball became wet and there was nothing happening (with the ball). So we thought we can bowl with a cross seam. There was bounce. Actually, Bumrah told me that we can try cross seam since there is nothing happening," said Ishant, who returned figures of 5-42.
"The attempt was, if you bowl out the opposition as soon as possible, it is good for your team. We tried that we were able to do that," he told fielding coach R Sridhar, who interviewed him for bcci.tv.
It was a special day for the lanky Ishant, who struck 19 runs and shared a crucial 60 runs with Ravindra Jadeja (58) in an eighth-wicket stand during India's innings earlier in the day.
"To be honest, when I was out during our innings, I was not feeling good at all. The more I scored runs with Jadu (Jadeja), the better it would be for the team. From 25 for 3, the kind of comeback we had, I wanted to have a long partnership with Jadeja," said the 30-year-old pacer, who is playing his 91st Test.
His five victims included two brilliant caught and bowled efforts, including the fourth scalp of Shimron Hetmyer in the penultimate over of the day.
Asked about the two efforts, he gave credit to the fielding coach.
"All credit goes to you (Sridhar). You always said while fielding you have to always anticipate. If you do extra work after being so tired, if you do fielding, after bowling so much, your fitness is increased.
"As a cricketer if that (fitness) is improved everybody can see the result but the hard work behind it is not known (by the people). So that is the result of hard work."
