Mohammed Shami was handed the ball for his second spell in India’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 campaign opener against Pakistan at a crucial juncture in the game. The scales had just tipped in Pakistan’s favour, and the complexion of the game had gone through a full-blown transformation.
Thousands of Indian cricket loyalists, who had cheered for their team throughout the day without showing a tinge of exhaustion, had just started to lose their voices. In T20 cricket, six deliveries are enough to turn a game on its head, and the Indian cricket team was learning it the hard way.
Pakistan went from 70/2 to 91/2 in the span of six deliveries, as Iftikhar Ahmed dispatched Axar Patel to the stands thrice in an over.
The sport will remember 23 October’s match for a plethora of reasons. Virat Kohli’s exceptional 82-run knock will be cherished forever by many, while for some, it will be a source of nightmare for years. Hardik Pandya’s supporting act will be remembered, and so will Arshdeep Singh’s three wickets. Certainly, Ravichandran Ashwin’s much-talked-about leave will also be immortalised in the books of history.
Amid the highlights, Shami’s second spell could slip into oblivion.
The 32-year-old was called upon by his skipper just as Pakistan had got back into the game after a disastrous start.
The first ball – full-length and angling in, crashed onto the pads, albeit after collecting an edge. The shouts for leg before wicket, quite unsurprisingly, fell on deaf ears.
The second ball – had the same attributes as the previous delivery. Full-length, having the desired mix of movement and pace, crashing onto the pads. The only difference was that this time around, there was no edge, and the lbw appeal was met with the raising of the index finger.
In an enthralling match packed to the brim with exceptional performances, Shami’s ‘ripper’ might not outlast the memory of some other pieces of brilliance, but to say the very least, it was significant.
Mohammed Shami dismissed Iftikhar Ahmed at a crucial juncture in India's match against Pakistan at the T20 World Cup 2022.
(Photo: PTI)
The significance of the wicket was two-folds – it brought India back in the game by sparking a procession of wickets, as Pakistan lost four wickets inside the next 29 runs. Keeping the outcome of the match aside, from his individual perspective, life had come full circle for Shami.
But, how?
Shami, Bumrah, and the Circle of Injuries
Let us go back to January 2016, when India took on Australia in a three-match T20I series. The men in blue needed a strong response after losing the ODI series 4-1, and they got exactly what they wanted, courtesy of the emergence of a new pace stalwart – Jasprit Bumrah. The youngster ended up being the leading wicket-taker in a series he was not even meant to play in, had Shami not been ruled out a few days ago with an injury.
Nearly seven years later, Bumrah finds himself as the best pacer in India, if not the world, and Shami – in the fringes of the Indian T20 team. It took an injury to Bumrah and a string of poor performances from Harshal Patel for the Bengal pacer to get back in the national set-up, as despite having proved his quality on multiple occasions, the veteran gears up for yet another audition – perhaps the last one.
Born in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha, Shami made his T20I debut back in 2014, incidentally against Pakistan. In that match, he dismissed the opposition’s leading run-scorer, Umar Akmal, and it seemed that India’s pace bowling woes will be solved miraculously.
But in a game as unpredictable as cricket, predictions are but an exercise in futility, as over the last eight years, Shami has racked up only 18 appearances in the shortest format, and one cannot point a finger at either the bowler or the selectors for the surprisingly low number of caps.
Following his first T20I campaign at the 2014 T20 World Cup, Shami scalped three wickets in a one-off T20I match against England. Once again, he dismissed the opposition’s leading wicket-taker – Eoin Morgan. He followed it up with fantastic performances against West Indies, and in the Border Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.
But in a Test match in Adelaide, he ended up hurting his knee.
Of Mental Strength and Physical Barriers
Then came the showpiece event of the sport – the 50-over World Cup. Shami was injured, and it was not particularly concealed information. He would inject fluid out of his knee before every match, and despite its after-effects, the pacer somehow managed to rank fourth on the list of leading wicket-takers in the tournament, with 17 scalps.
Mental strength could help a person achieve the impossible, but the physical boundaries are there for a reason.
Soon, his knee would surrender, and Shami would need arthroscopic corrective surgery. In simpler, non-medical jargon, he would be walking in crutches for 40 days, and out of the ground for over six months.
The knee injury would resurface at times, and when it would not, his hamstring would give up. His personal life would make the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2018, and exactly when the noise would subside, he would meet a ghastly road accident, resulting in head injuries.
Amid all that, stuck in a start-stop career on the pitch and the barrage of negative press outside of it, Shami would, as he himself had stated, slip into a phase where he met the lowest of lows, shrouded with thoughts of ending it all.
Will All End Well?
He would see the likes of Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar and Harshal Patel make their debuts long after his introduction, and yet, rack up more T20I appearances. Yet, the pacer hung in there, using all of his might, and kept on delivering consistently good performances in the Indian Premier League.
He was rewarded with a place in the 2021 T20 World Cup team, but going wicketless in the first two matches against Pakistan and New Zealand were enough to give him the axe, though he picked up six wickets in the next two fixtures.
Shami's omission was followed by India’s experimentation with the likes of Avesh Khan and Umran Malik, but as the youngsters struggled to be convincing, the favour returned on the veteran.
Only if injuries don’t happen again, only if fortune shows leniency, and only if Shami excels in his ongoing audition, perhaps, Shami’s tale of what-could-have-been will conclude with an all’s-well-that-ends-well plotline.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)