World Cup 2023 | Mohammed Shami — ‘Meticulous Maximus’ and ‘Annihilator Unabated’  Premium

Mohammed Shami: Talismanic bowler, mentor, destroyer of stumps. His unique bowling action, combined with his skill and pace, has seen him take 54 wickets in three World Cups, the highest for an Indian. He is a menace at the nets and his first spell is often devastating. His ability to land the ball on the money from the first ball is a special attribute. He is a vital cog in India's march to the World Cup final.

Fast bowlers peddling gentle looseners before getting into their rhythm and batters offering the forward defensive shot until they get their eye in are all part of cricket’s quaint traditions. But the modern era, with its accent on the quick and the settled, instant noodles and hot tea bags, tends to tweak orthodox dogmas, marrying the classical with the contemporary.

To see Mohammed Shami in full flight is to savour these complex realities. Often deemed an able foil to Jasprit Bumrah, a buddy to Mohammed Siraj and the ally to Umesh Yadav, Shami’s uniqueness is often overlooked at worst or tends to be taken for granted at best. Be it the first over or stepping in as first change, Shami steams in, gaining speed, not for him the eternal winnowing steps of Bumrah before the sudden explosion or the antelope’s gait of Siraj.

A bowling action pleasing on the eye ensues and the ball homes in, like a pigeon returning to its roost, to that exact uncertain spot for innumerable batters. On and around off-stump, angling in, and the willow wielders tap their inner Hamlet and perhaps whisper: to drive or not to drive. In that split second shrouded in confusion, the delivery becomes either the seducer drawing the edge or the sledge hammer thudding into pads or just dismantling stumps.

Shami will keep running, a hand raised, a smile spreading across his face, just another day at work while his team-mates race towards him. To land the ball on the money from the very first ball is a special attribute and through this World Cup and earlier in his career, except during those phases when he carried some niggles, Shami has been both ‘Meticulous Maximus’ and ‘Annihilator Unabated’. All done with a grin and with a certainty of a river seeking the sea.

Yet, he tends to get the boot. In a white-ball environment that lays emphasis on all-round ability, Shami’s weaker batting arm, despite his odd long handle forays at the crease, is cited as an excuse to drop him. The Indian team management did that in the latest World Cup, leaving him out of the playing eleven in the games at Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Pune. The all-round skills of Hardik Pandya and, to a lesser extent, Shardul Thakur meant that the doors were shut on the man with roots in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh.

An unfortunate injury to Hardik meant that the team was now scrambling for balance. With no like-for-like replacement available for Hardik, the think-tank decided to field six batters and five full-fledged bowlers. Suryakumar Yadav and Shami found their spots in the clash involving New Zealand at Dharamshala, and the rest is history.

Shami’s yields in the matches so far have been five for 54 (against New Zealand), four for 22 (England), five for 18 (Sri Lanka), two for 18 (South Africa), none for 41 (Netherlands) and seven for 57 (New Zealand, semifinal). He has inevitably scythed through rivals in his first spell before returning to mop up a few more scalps.