The name Mohammed Shami is now a regular in the Indian cricket team. The UP based pacer has got himself a separate place in Virat Kohli’s Test team with spectacular bowling performances. He is the fastest Indian bowler to fetch 100 ODI wickets and has a World Cup hat-trick to his name.
Shami, along with Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma, are the Indian pace Super-trio, that has taken the Indian bowling to the next level. Moreover, he has been a consistent performer himself, who has led the team to victories in most of the occasions. We have discussed the 29-year old’s killer factors that have never failed to trouble opposition batsmen in multiple occasions in a separate blog.
Here, in this blog, we will discuss on Shami’s best bowling performances so far in both Test and ODI formats that have led the Indian team to success. The first three spells were from Tests, and the last two are his ODI stunts from the 2019 ODI World cup.
#5 India vs South Africa, Visakhapatnam 2019 (10.5-2-35-5)
Shami came into bowl after the spin duo (Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja) trying their chance with the new ball in the slow Day-5 pitch of Visakhapatnam. It all started when Shami’s unusual low kept delivery dismantled Bavuma’s defence. What came next was the magic of seam presentation, Shami’s signature sharp movement after pitching uprooted the stumps of Faf Du Plessis and Quinton De Kock. The UP born fast bowlers’ unstoppable effort fetched the last two tails of the Proteas for the typical outside off deliveries.
Four out of five wickets were bowled, and it was Shami’s seam work and support from the Day 5 pitch that worked well.
“It’s difficult to bowl on such a wicket because it was getting slower. So the plan was to bowl at the stumps.” said Mohammed Shami after claiming the five wicket haul.
#4 India vs West Indies, Kolkata 2013 (13.1-0-47-5)
It was Mohammed Shami’s debut Test match. Also, it was Sachin Tendulkar’s 199th Test match. India was playing West Indies in Kolkata. It was apt that Shami received his Test cap from the master himself, and then came up with twin master spells in both innings of that game.
Indeed it was already a one-sided match for India when Shami came into bowl in the second innings. Mohammed Shami was already vibrant with the four wickets he got in the first innings of his debut Test. Interestingly in the second innings, the reverse swing was doing the magic. The LBW of Marlon Samuels showed the hint of what was coming next. The skipper very well planned Denesh Ramdin’s wicket by making a short leg fielder for the inswingers. In the end, Darren Sammy, Shane Shillingford and Sheldon Cottrell found no better ways to avoid the reversed inswingers between their bat and pad gap. On the whole, it was a spell of perfectly executed reverse swing.
“Shami was fantastic, he got the right length, and that was the reason he got nine wickets (in both innings). You need a bit of pace if you want to dominate, he has very good seam positioning, which means he can reverse away from the right-handers too. On a wicket that has more bounce he can move the ball both ways” says MS dhoni in the Post Presentation.
#3 Australia vs India, Perth 2018 (24-8-56-6)
Embed from Getty ImagesThis particular spell in Perth created the career-best figure for Mohammed Shami in Tests. The UP born seamer used the Aussie kind of bouncers to grab six wickets to his name. Amidst it was a pretty good pitch to bat on for Oz, where cracks were yet to be open. The searing bouncers victimised the lefties, Marcus Harris and Shaun Marsh. Post lunch session moved Shami to his top gear. The way he dismissed Tim Paine, Usman Khawaja, and Aaron Finch revealed the swagger side of Mr.Shami. The fast bowler became deadly dangerous for the tail-enders, and his blurry image extricated the wicket of Nathan Lyon to accomplish his six-wicket haul.
“Sensational Shami grows in stature in the second innings. Average down to 24 from 35 and strike-rate down to 45 from 60.”
stated Akash Chopra, Former Indian Cricketer on Shami’s fiery spell.
#2 India vs Afghanistan (CWC19), Southampton 2019 (9.5-1-40-4)
Shami was groomed entirely to be on this spectacular spell. When India felt that 223 runs weren’t good enough to defend, Mohammed Shami came to the rescue by scalping the first wicket of Afghanistan. A fair amount of credit goes to Jasprit Bumrah, who gave away only 5 runs in the second last over and left 16 runs for Shami to defend in the final over. All signs of upsets for India were felt until Shami bowled three impressive yorkers. His targeted yorkers on leg stump led to a catch in the long-on and two clean crashes at the root of the stumps, which in turn completed his hat trick, thereby becoming the second Indian to claim a World Cup hat trick. The hat trick feast sets the environment on fire and led the whole crowd to erupt with the biggest cheer.
Even though it wasn’t the wickets of pure batters, the time he turned the cards became so precious. Eventually, Shami became the second Indian bowler to grab a hat trick in the World cups, and it saved India from a huge upset.
Chetan Sharma, the first-ever Indian bowler to pick a hat trick in World cups, said this.:
“I could only imagine how the reaction would’ve been when I took the first hat trick in 1987. Even I was jumping on my seat when Shami took the hat trick. It always feels good when an Indian goes into the record books. It makes you feel proud. I’d like to congratulate him for the achievement.”
#1 India vs West Indies (CWC19), Manchester 2019 (6.2-0-16-4)
Embed from Getty ImagesThis is one of the finest of the spells Shami has made in ODI. This time it was the quality of batters that made this performance a top one. Firstly, it was a pacy short ball which defeated Chris Gayle’s bat swing and went up in the air. Secondly, Shai Hope’s broken stumps brought in the classic inswinger of Shami once again. Following that, Shimron Hetmyer got trapped by the point fielder for a very ordinary offside ball. The wicket of Oshane Thomas at the end was the gift for his stellar performance. Shami covered a four-for to his name that day. The economical bowling from Shami has helped India to restrict Windies with 143 runs on board.
Legendary Indian Batsman Sunil Gavaskar on this Shami’s spell:
“Mohammed Shami reminds me of Malcolm Marshall, who still wakes me up from deep sleep.”
