Mohammed Shami has been on a rampage at the 2023 ICC World Cup. After being benched for the first four matches, it has taken him only three games to become India’s leading wicket-taker.
In those three matches, Shami’s tally is bulging at 14 wickets – five of those wickets coming in Thursday’s (2 November) match against Sri Lanka, where his spell confirmed India’s semi-final participation. Playing in his third World Cup, the 33-year-old bowler took his overall tally to 45 wickets in only 14 matches – including a hat-trick in the 2019 World Cup – and went past the 44-wicket record of Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan.
Shami’s career – if we are to focus on only the cricketing bit – has been topsy-turvy, at the very least. And if we add the non-cricketing issues he has had to endure, one would be compelled to doff his hat to him for soaking in all the pressure and giving his best with the ball. With age, he has matured, perhaps in more ways than one, and is now dictating terms to the ball, as if he has a string attached to it.
Patience Is a Virtue
Not being in a World Cup squad hurts every cricketer. What hurts more, is making it to the team, only to watch the game from the sidelines – as Shami did for the first three matches, where Shardul Thakur was preferred ahead of him.
But Hardik Pandya’s injury against Bangladesh gave Shami the opportunity to play against New Zealand, and he ended up taking five wickets. A few days later, against England, he bagged four wickets, cementing his place in the team. He missed a hat-trick against Sri Lanka, but would be content with the five wickets, taken by using the crease cleverly while bowling from both sides of the stumps.
Coach’s Advice
When Shami was made to warm the bench, his childhood coach Badaruddin Siddiqui advised him to bide his time.
“I understand his omission was due to the requirements of the team combination. I told Shami to enjoy and wait for his turn. He is more intelligent and mature now, so he understood the point I made. Then, Pandya’s injury opened the door for him,” Siddiqui said, during a conversation with The Quint.
On Thursday, after his great spell against Sri Lanka, Shami showed his maturity in the post-match interview, too. He deftly tackled all the tricky questions and emphasised that he was enjoying his rhythm and that he was in good space.
Third World Cup Appearance
This is Shami’s third World Cup. In the 2015 tournament in Australia-New Zealand, he had bagged 17 scalps at an average of 17.29 in seven matches while in the 2019 World Cup, he captured 14 at 13.78 average in four matches.
But he was made to sit out for the initial matches of the 2019 World Cup as well. By a strange coincidence, then too his inclusion in the team came as a stroke of fortune, as pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar got injured. And there was no looking back for him after that.
Shami, then 28, also picked up the hat-trick against Afghanistan at the Rose Bowl in Southampton, England, in 2019. He had, thus, become only the second Indian, after Chetan Sharma, to achieve that feat in the World Cup. Sharma had performed the feat against New Zealand in Nagpur in 1987.
A Career With Setbacks Aplenty, but Comebacks More
Hailing from a village in Amroha district in Uttar Pradesh, Shami has had to endure several serious injuries during his international career that began in January 2013, with a One-day International against Pakistan in Delhi. However, post every setback, there has been a remarkable comeback.
A career-threatening knee injury, which forced him out of the game for 18 months in 2015, probably hurt him the most. In Shami’s own words – “it was the most painful period of my life”. He later revealed that he played the 2015 World Cup with the injury, but still managed to finish as the fourth-highest wicket-taker of the tournament.
In March 2018, Shami was involved in a road accident, wherein he sustained a serious head injury. He would admit later, during a conversation with Rohit Sharma, that he “considered committing suicide three times in that period, so much was the stress on me”.
Then, Shami broke his bowling arm off a Pat Cummins’ delivery during the abysmal defeat in the Adelaide Test in December 2020, when India were bowled for a mere 36.
Getting Feet Dirty for Fitness
No Shami story would be complete without a mention of his remarkable willpower to regain fitness, particularly just before going on the tour of Australia and New Zealand in January-February 2019. Before embarking on the successful tour, he got his vast-but-uneven farmhouse land levelled, and worked hard to regain fitness that has stood him in good stead since.
He made a mud track, on which he ran 50m and 100m dashes. The soft mud underneath his feet helped him build muscles, strength, and endurance. An overweight Shami lost several kilos and passed the next fitness test.
“He had bought a large piece of land and turned it into a farmhouse which he levelled and built turf pitches. He himself worked on levelling and preparing the pitches with the help of a curator. He purchased pitch rollers and pitch covers, besides setting up a gymnasium to work in when at home,” said one of his close confidants.
Manoj Prabhakar Lauds Shami
Former India Test all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar has the highest regard for Shami. He distinctly remembers his destructive spell in the Ranji Trophy national championship in 2017-18. Prabhakar was Delhi’s bowling coach in that season and his team was playing against Bengal in a semi-final match at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Gahunje, Pune.
“I witnessed Shami bowl a very good spell there. Gautam Gambhir had completed his century and was batting well. He had him caught and, if I remember correctly, he bowled a five-over spell in which he dismissed (six) key batsmen. What a spell it was. The Delhi batsmen just didn’t know how to play him. It was such a good spell,” he recalled. Shami finished the innings with excellent figures of 39-6-122-6, but couldn’t prevent Delhi from winning by an innings and 26 runs.
Prabhakar, who is credited with having pioneered and mastered the slower delivery, acknowledges Shami’s maturity as a bowler. “He has the best wrist position in the world; he holds the ball exactly like I would. What I learned in about eight years – there was no one to guide us – Shami seems to have learned in much less time in international cricket. For instance, I didn’t know for a long time the advantage of bowling from close to the stumps. Starting with my Test debut in 1984 to 1989, when I made a comeback to the Indian team, my focus was on trying to swing the ball either way. But Shami is class and an asset to the team,” he avers.
Sanjeev Sharma Recalls the ‘Skiddy Customer’
Former India pacer Sanjeev Sharma recalls a Delhi-Bengal Ranji Trophy match in 2011-12 in which Shami appeared. It was only his fifth Ranji Trophy game in his second first-class season, having opted to represent Bengal. The then Delhi coach was watching Shami bowl for the first time.
“Only a batsman facing a bowler can tell you how he is bowling; you can't correctly assess that from outside the field. When one of the Delhi batters came out after facing Shami, he told me that he looked ordinary from the outside, but off the pitch he was nippy, and that his ball kicked up from the spot. And his seam position was upright even then. There was nothing in that Eden Gardens pitch,” Sharma told The Quint.
When Shami Defied BCCI’s Restrictions
Arun Lal, a former India opener, said his team desperately needed Shami to play against Kerala in a Ranji Trophy match at Eden Gardens in 2018-19, when he was Bengal head coach. “The BCCI had put a restriction that the Indian team pacers would bowl only a few overs, probably a maximum of 15, due to workload management, if they turn out in the Ranji Trophy. But Shami ended bowling 26 overs and bagged three wickets in the first innings and three overs in the second,” said Arun Lal.
“When Shami first came to Kolkata from Uttar Pradesh looking to represent Bengal in domestic tournaments, he came straight to my academy. He was absolutely raw at the time and our bowling coach Simanta Hazra worked on him for two-three years,” he informed.
(The writer has covered cricket for over three decades, based in New Delhi. He tweets at @AlwaysCricket)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)