Subhayan Chakraborty in Bengaluru
One of the biggest positives from Bengaluru in the last week has been Mohammed Shami’s road to recovery. Shami, recovering from a knee issue, was seen bowling with vigour on Sunday, a couple of hours after India’s eight-wicket defeat to New Zealand at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
In the bowling session, which lasted more than an hour, Shami bowled at Shubman Gill and assistant coach Abhishek Nayar. As reported earlier, Shami is in line to make a comeback in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was also seen bowling alone in the stadium after the second day of play, when the Indian team was bowled out for 46.
The experienced pacer was at his skillful best as he seamed the ball both ways against Gill before Nayar entered the nets fully padded up. The latter faced Shami for a good 20-30 minutes with the pacer troubling him on quite a few occasions with the moving ball. Overall, the focus was firmly on Shami as India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel stood at his run-up to keep a close eye on the pacer.
Shami, like the session on Thursday, had heavy strapping on his knee but bowled almost at full-tilt to Nayar. After Nayar completed his batting session, Shami took a breather. During the break, Shami took a few flat catches from fielding coach T Dilip near the boundary rope. Following a chat with Morkel, the Indian bowling coach set up an elastic stump and marked the good length areas with a cone and a couple of stumps for Shami to bowl in the channel which the 34-year-old pacer executed without much fuss.
Shami’s last appearance was in the 2023 ODI World Cup final in November last year.
Earlier, India captain Rohit Sharma had confirmed that Shami had a “setback” with a swollen knee.
“He has not played any cricket for over a year,” Rohit had said. “It is quite tough for a fast bowler to have missed so much of cricket and then suddenly to come out and be at his best. It is not ideal. We will want to give him enough time to recover and be 100 per cent fit.”
The skipper added: “We don’t want to bring an undercooked Shami to Australia. That is not going to be the right decision for us.”
Also read:
Rishabh Pant’s absence, if he misses the second Test against New Zealand in Pune, would be a big blow for India. Fit-again Shubman Gill, however, will return to the fold.@CricSubhayan ✍️#INDvsNZ https://t.co/g2BjM6KRPy
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) October 20, 2024
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