Mohammed Shami: Outstanding Performance At Centurion
Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
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By Slogger
First publised on 2022-01-02 07:58:07
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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
View all posts by this Author
With his explosive performance in the first Test against South Africa at the Centurion, Mohammed Shami is in focus once more, the second time in a few months. The last time he was in the limelight was because after an off day in the T20 World Cup in the match against Pakistan, he was brutally trolled on social media by louts who imputed religious motives for what they called his âcalculated underperformanceâ. He was defended by his colleagues and most ex-players, as also by cricket lovers who understood the game better. But this time, Shami is earning well-deserved praise for his performance.
Shami is a lion-hearted cricketer who never shies from hard work and gives his 100% to the team. He has not let temporary loss of form from time to time or domestic problems come in way of his game and performance. As Kohli said later, right now, Shami is among the top three bowlers in the world. His coach from his early playing days, WV Raman (who lobbied for his inclusion in the Bengal Ranji team) has said that Shami is a bowler who has all elements - from run-up, acceleration and alignment - in place and is someone who gets the ball to fizz off the surface. Raman says that Shami has, over the years, worked out how to set up batsmen and work them out.
Shami is one bowler who puts in everything in his bowling. He makes use of the crease, has a good inswinger, is good with the old ball and when required, can bowl balls that the batsmen cannot work away. But he is mainly a strike bowler who does not get frustrated when he is hit for a few boundaries. The way he bowls, he invites the batsmen to play strokes and make mistakes. Hence, he might get hit sometimes without getting wickets (like it happened in the Pakistan game in the T20 World Cup) but most of the times his canny variations work and the batsmen make a mistake.
As of now, Shami, along with Bumrah and supported in turns by the experienced Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma and exciting newcomers like Md. Siraj and Shardul Thakur, forms a deadly pace-seam bowling combination that has given the Indian cricket team the power to dismiss the opposition twice in Tests on almost all kinds of surfaces. Going ahead, as age catches up with him, Shami is likely to use his experience to get wickets by playing on the weaknesses of the batsmen. What is sure is that he is likely to be around for many more years as a strike bowler for India.
