Umpires begin early crackdown on Ishant Sharma's no balls

India’s Ishant Sharma has been called for a no ball on the second delivery he sent down on day five of the first Test against Australia.

Sharma and the umpires drew heat on Sunday after the paceman made an inexcusable blunder.

Chasing 323 to win, Australian opener Aaron Finch was given out lbw on the second ball of the innings.

But the batsman sent the decision upstairs and DRS showed Sharma had bowled a no ball, handing Finch a reprieve.

An investigation by Channel 7 commentator Glenn McGrath into Sharma’s bowling later revealed he was stepping over relatively often without being called.

But that was not the case on Monday morning.

After Ravi Ashwin sped through the first over of the final day, Sharma was called for a no ball on his second ball as the umpires began cracking down on his overstepping.

“That’s really interesting,” former Australian captain Ricky Ponting said on Channel 7.

“We spoke long and hard yesterday about how many no balls it seemed the umpires were missing, particularly off Ishant Sharma.

“Here we are the second ball this morning and the umpires have actually called one. So they’re on to it.

“It’s one thing to not be calling but if I was the fielding captain I would demand that (the umpire) was calling my bowler because you don’t want to get wickets off no balls, like they saw yesterday.”

Ponting added that the umpire’s early no ball would help both teams get their house in order.

Former Test paceman Damien Fleming said the officials can also help coach bowlers by warning them of close calls.

“Once you’ve been called a lot you start looking at the front line as opposed to just looking at your target and getting your run-up right, making sure you look at your crease,” Fleming said.

“So he’ll be running in now and he’ll be looking at the spot where he’s going to land and once he feels comfortable he’ll look up. That can hurt his consistency a bit.”

The no ball did not seem to bother Sharma, however, as an unexpected short ball had Travis Head caught at gully for 14.

Head added just three runs to his overnight score, with Australia reduced to 5-115 needing 208 more runs for victory.