Not many would believe that Ishant Sharma is over a decade old in international cricket. He made his debut in 2007 against Bangladesh and made a name for himself as a 19-year-old in Australia when he made the then Australian captain Ricky Ponting jump to his tunes in one of the fiercest battles at the WACA ground in Perth.

Ishant Sharma reveals how he developed habit of bowling long spells

However, the lanky pacer has turned his fortunes around in the last 3-4 years by changing his line and length of bowling, which has earned him more wickets and gained big accuracy with the ball. In his 97 Tests, Ishant has 297 wickets at an average of 32.39 and a strike rate of 61.1. He also played in 80 ODIs, picking 115 wickets in those encounters.

In an interview with Cricbuzz.com, Ishant Sharma revealed that he would love to sledge the current no.1 ranked Test batsman Steve Smith, more than Ricky Ponting. Ishant said, “Steven Smith is the one who I would love to sledge more than Ricky Ponting.”

As mentioned above, Ishant Sharma had troubled Ponting a lot but had more fierce battles with Steve Smith as well. He had troubled the right-hander a lot when Australia came to India in 2017, where Smith was the only Australian batsman to score tons of runs. His funny facial expressions to distract Smith became a hugely popular meme as well.