Press Trust of India
Bangalore, Nov 16: Not the least bit concerned about the storm he kicked off due to an overtly aggressive demeanour during the Sri Lanka tour, Ishant Sharma said Monday that he has forgotten the outburst which led to a one-match ban on him. Ishant informed that he preferred to look ahead instead of dwelling on the past.
“Many times in life we look back and think of a moment in the past, and wonder, ‘If I had done this or not done that, would things have been different’? There is no answer to that. When I got banned for the Mohali Test, I decided I would not look back. What happened in Sri Lanka is a thing of the past, and I prefer not to think about it,” Ishant was quoted as saying by ‘bcci.tv’.
The pacer was criticised by several former cricketers for his outbursts during the tour for his showdown with Sri Lankan pacer Dhammika Prasad catching the most attention. “He (Dhammika) was bowling bouncers to me. In an over you can only bowl two, but he bowled a third one. I knew that he was doing it because he got hit on his hand off my bowling earlier. Anyway, when he bowled a third bouncer, it did not come up,” he recalled.
“So, I just told him, ‘You are too slow to hit me on the helmet’. He got offended and other Sri Lankan players got involved too and the situation turned sour.
“As a fast bowler, you need to do something to charge you up. Many thought I got banned because of my spat with Dhammika, but it was not so. I was disciplined because I celebrated in the batsman’s face after getting him out. That is not allowed. It was the heat of the moment,” he added.