The last time Ishant Sharma bowled in whites, he was bowling full tilt in West Indies. Then it was time for the New Zealand Tests wherein he was diagnosed with chickungunya before the start of the series. That ruled him out of action from the entire series. Sharma found himself in the hospital trying to recover from the illness as the team on the other hand marched its way to numero uno status. “Those were tough times,” Sharma says speaking about the illness that cost him a vital Test series. “When I was out for the New Zealand series, I couldn’t even watch the matches on television because I was in the hospital for two weeks.” The recovery process according to Ishant was all the more tough. “When I was discharged from the hospital, I went to the ground and began my training. I slowly began regaining strength because you lose a lot of muscle when you are suffering from chickungunya. It was very difficult to recover because I had very little time to get back to full fitness, especially with the amount of Test matches we were playing going forward. “I started weight training slowly, and began bowling to get a feel of my body. I had to get match fit and train harder so that I could play the matches. I put in the hard yards and straightaway went into two Ranji Trophy matches to test my fitness. I then got into the (Test) side and was looking to get back to the kind of bowling fitness standards that I had in West Indies. It was tough but I am glad that I am back.” Ishant didn’t feature in the first four Tests with Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav going great guns. In the third Test, Shami got injured and was ruled out of the rest of the series, which gave Bhuvneshwar Kumar a place in the eleven for the Mumbai Test. Ishant missed the bus in Mumbai owing to his marriage. But come Chennai, Ishant was back in the mix, physically and mentally fresh. “When Virat told me that I will be playing this game, I was mentally prepared to go into this Test match. Once you are mentally fit and your mind is trained to be prepared for a Test match, you don’t need anything else. You just go with the flow and put in your hundred percent when you are on the field.” In his comeback match of sorts, Ishant was spot on with his lines and lengths. Hardly did he err with his bowling plans. His first spell in this Test had four maidens out of five overs and one wicket to his name. At one point of time he had bowled nine overs for just nine runs. Virat Kohli used him in short bursts later as well and there were hardly any easy giveaways off his bowling. He had already setup Keaton Jennings beautifully on Day 1, only to comeback on Day 2 and get Jos Buttler plumb in front. “The wicket was a bit damp on the first morning and I knew I had to bowl in good areas. The first hour of the morning session is very crucial because that is the time when things happen. The bowled nipped and helped the seamers a bit in the morning on both days. I had set up Jennings really well. The ball was swinging in the morning and my aim was to hit the right lengths consistently. Same was the case with Buttler. When you bowl a full ball, the batsman feels it is a boundary delivery and goes along with the flow. It is not easy at that time to hit the ball when it is a touch slow. He went for the shot and missed it. My main motive was to pitch the ball in a way that it finished on the top of off stump. It was good to have wickets in my name, especially after I was bowling after a layoff.” Ishant was happy with two in the bag and economical figures after two days on the field. “I believe I could have made the batsmen play more deliveries. The wicket was flat and it was important to be patient. I am bowling in full flow after two-and-a-half weeks and considering that, I am happy with my performance.”