Ashutosh Sharma was signed to hit sixes, and now leads the One-Day Cup wicket charts

Hampshire signed Ashutosh Sharma to hit sixes. Four matches into the Metro Bank One-Day Cup he has 13 wickets, more than anyone else in the competition, and on Friday at Chelmsford he took the first five-wicket haul of his List A career. He is a right-arm medium-pacer who, until this summer, had barely bowled anywhere that counted.

Five for 51 in a game that produced 638 runs

Essex were 120 for 1 and going nowhere but forward when Ashutosh struck twice in the 19th over, removing the captain Tom Westley for 24 and bowling Charlie Allison for a three-ball duck. Noah Thain went on to make 109 from 96 balls and Grant Roelofsen 52 from 35, so the innings did not collapse so much as keep getting interrupted. Ashutosh came back at the end and took the last three to fall: Simon Fernandes caught, Mackenzie Jones caught, Charlie Bennett bowled. Essex 317 all out in 49 overs, Ashutosh 5 for 51 from his 10.

Hampshire then chased it, which took some doing. They needed 318 and got there at 321 for 7 with 14 balls left, James Fuller unbeaten on 58 from 31 balls at the end of it. Ashutosh made 16 before Jones had him lbw, which is not the part of his day anyone will remember.

Two wickets in four List A games, then 13 in four

Here is the part that does not compute. Before this stint, Ashutosh had bowled 22 overs across four List A matches in his career and taken two wickets. In 32 IPL appearances for Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, he has not bowled a single ball. He is listed as a right-arm medium-pacer the way a lot of Indian domestic batters are listed as bowlers, which is to say as a formality.

Then Hampshire handed him the ball in England and he has not stopped. Three for 48 against Yorkshire on debut at Scarborough, then 4 for 54 against Middlesex on 24 July for what were career-best figures at the time, a quieter 1 for 49 against Gloucestershire on 29 July, and now 5 for 51 at Chelmsford. Thirteen wickets at 15.53, top of the One-Day Cup charts, from a man whose county deal was announced as an overseas batting signing.

There was a hint of it earlier in the year, if anyone was watching. He captained Malwa Stallions in the 2026 Madhya Pradesh League and finished with seven wickets from eight innings, having bowled in only five T20 innings in his career before that tournament.

What it might be worth to him

Ashutosh’s value has always been narrow and real. Wisden counts 25 sixes in 17 innings across his last two IPL seasons, the most by any batter coming in at No. 6 or lower, and he holds the record for the fastest T20 fifty by an Indian: 50 off 11 balls for Railways against Arunachal Pradesh at Ranchi in October 2023, which took Yuvraj Singh’s 12-ball record off the board after 16 years. That is a specialist’s CV. It gets you picked and it gets you dropped, because a finisher who cannot bowl is a luxury when the XI is tight.

A finisher who can bowl four overs is something else. Whether this is a genuine second skill or a good month on English pitches against sides who had not planned for him, nobody can say yet, and 13 wickets in a 50-over county competition proves nothing about the IPL. But he is 27, he is at Delhi Capitals, and franchises spend every winter hunting for the player who covers two jobs. He has handed them four matches of evidence nobody asked him for.

More cricket features from SportsAdda