Top 5 youngest Indian bowlers to take a 5-wicket haul in Tests
India has produced many legendary batsmen but numbers falter when we enlist its bowling contribution to the world cricket. Batting is probably the favorite part of the game for the practitioners as well as for the viewers in India. Most of the young cricketers want to follow the footsteps of Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Dravid and many other greats.
Every year we hear about some batsman, who is a child prodigy, making waves in the domestic circuit. Talks about their international prospects surface soon and people find new heroes in them. We have even seen a few young batting talents making debut for India and delivering scintillating performances. But it happens very rarely when we discuss young bowlers making waves in their early ages.
Test cricket, which is considered to be the ultimate form of the game, tests the players to their core, in accordance with its name. It brings out the real character of a player. It is a delight to watch a bowler stamping his brilliance on a cricket pitch at a young age.
We previously went through the list of world's top 5 youngest bowlers to take 5-wicket haul in Test cricket. In this list, let's take a look at who are the youngest Indian bowlers to achieve the same feat.
#5 Chetan Sharma (19y 246d)
Chetan Sharma was a medium pace bowler of India in the late 80s. He was a pocket-sized dynamo. He made up for his height with a good action and a decent pace. He made his first-class debut for Haryana at the age of 16 and was able to get into the Indian team at the age of 17. He made his Test debut a year later, at 18.
He picked his first five-wicket haul against Sri Lanka in the second Test of the series at Colombo in 1985. While bowling in the first innings, he dismissed five wickets for 118 runs (5/118) to hold Sri Lanka at 385. He picked one more wicket in the second innings and ended the match with 6 wickets in his kitty. However, India couldn't win the match and Sri Lanka won the game by 149 runs. He picked 14 wickets in the series and impressed everyone with his eye-catching performances.
He later went to England in 1986 for a 3-match Test series. There he picked 16 wickets in just two Test matches that included a five-wicket haul at Lord's. Moreover, he became the first Indian bowler to take ten-wicket haul in England(at Birmingham).
In his Test career, Sharma picked 61 wickets in 23 matches with the best figures in an innings of 6/58.