“I want to perform for the team in all formats,” Mohammed Shami had said in one of our many conversations. “I am not bothered about the colour of the ball. Anytime the selectors, coaching staff, and captain show faith by giving the ball to me, all I want to do is to fulfill my responsibility as a bowler. I don’t think too much about records and all, or which format I am playing more. If you are playing for India, you have to give your best. That’s it.”
And that’s what he has been doing since he was handed the ball against New Zealand on October 22. He now has 40 wickets in just 13 World Cup games, including nine from two in this tournament. Shami is bowling as well as he ever has in white-ball cricket and in doing so, has given Rohit Sharma, the captain, an option to challenge every opponent that there is in this competition.
Take Sunday night. England had come out with intent against Mohammed Siraj. A six and a four had set the tone in the second over. Rohit, who is captaining like a dream, instantly went to Shami knowing that he needed pressure from both ends. With Jasprit Bumrah picking up wickets and making the ball talk, Rohit needed a bowler who could keep England on the mat and add to the pressure. Clearly, Shami was his man.
Pace, movement, length – it was a spell of fast bowling that could make it to any coaching manual. It was as if he could pick up a wicket every ball. And the truth is, while he picked up two in his first four overs, he could have easily have had a few more. Shami was going past the edge literally every ball and, under lights at the Ekana, bowled like a man possessed.
In fact, he had also spoken about how he deals with the frustration of going past the edge multiple times without much luck. And this statement highlights the mental strength of the man.
“It is my job to bowl well,” he said. “My job is to test the batters at all times. Yes, it is frustrating and one has to be patient. Ultimately, every bowler needs a bit of luck, and I feel you will get the wickets which you are destined to if you keep bowling well. Hence, I concentrate on challenging the batters. The seam position that people talk about hasn’t happened in a day, a lot of hard work has gone behind it. My way of handling pressure and frustration is to laugh it off.
“You must have seen it even during matches if I go past the edge of a batter or someone drops a catch off my bowling, I laugh it off. I won’t be able to bowl well if I become frustrated or let the pressure get to me. So, I just try to laugh it off and continue bowling in the channels that I am supposed to hit to put the batters under pressure.”
A fit and lean Shami has perhaps done enough to push his captain to play him in every game. Yes, even after Hardik Pandya is fit and back, leaving Shami out isn’t really an option anymore. Frankly, that’s what it is about. To be the best version of yourself on the biggest stage of all. In the absence of Bumrah, Shami was expected to do the job in the T20 World Cup in Australia last November.
Unfortunately for India, Shami and the bowling unit faltered against England in the semi-finals. Not so last night. It was a very different India that had turned up at the Ekana, and a 100-run victory margin after scoring 229 didn’t flatter them one bit.
But then, Shami will know that the job isn’t done yet. With a foot in the semi-finals, India has a cushion that they have earned for themselves. Even if they falter in one of the three remaining group games, it will not really matter. But come the knockouts, the story is entirely different. You can’t afford a slip, and the pressure is very different in such games. Also, India’s record isn’t anything to shout about in such high-pressure matches. Shami, if we go by one of our last conversations, is aware of that.
Sample this.
“The league stages of the World Cup and the knockout stage are two completely different phases,” he told me. “You can afford slip-ups in the league stages, but the margin of error is very small when it comes to the knockout stage.”
With him bowling the way he is, that statement could well be flipped around. There isn’t any margin of error for the batters, and that’s what India would want at the Wankhede when Rohit’s team take the field in the semi-final. With Shami in the form that he is, a match-winning spell could well be the Diwali gift that he gives all his fans.