By The recent news of Mohammed Shami winning the prestigious Arjuna Award must have brought happiness to millions and millions of cricket fans in India and also abroad. The right-arm fast bowler, who had recently achieved hero’s status among India’s cricket lovers because of his fiery and skillful bowling in the recently concluded ODI World Cup, was a deserving recipient of this coveted award.
Shami, who became the mainstay of India’s bowling attack during the ODI World Cup campaign, where they reached the finals and ended up as runners-up, captured 24 wickets from only seven matches he played in the recently concluded mega cricket event. He was benched during India’s first four matches in the 2023 edition of the ODI Cricket World Cup. His first appearance at the 2023 Cricket World Cup was against New Zealand, where he took 5/54 and became the Player of the Match. His performance proved the decision of the team management to bench him for four matches of the last edition of the ODI World Cup as utterly wrong.
That was followed by two more superb bowling performances of Shami at the 2023 edition of the ODI World Cup. The star bowler earned 4 for 22 against England and 5 for 18 against Sri Lanka. But his best ODI bowling performance was yet to come, and it came in the same big tournament only.
He took 7 for 57 in the semi-final against New Zealand, where he wreaked havoc in New Zealand’s batting lineup with his accuracy and variety. His taking of New Zealand’s captain and star batsman Kane Williamson’s wicket at a crucial stage of the game was probably the turning point of the thrilling decider. With that wicket, he broke an 181-run partnership between Kane Williamson and Daryl Mitchell, who were threatening to take the match out of India’s hands with their superb batting display.
Prior to that, he dismissed Devon Convoy (another star batsman of the New Zealand cricket team) and the in-form Rachin Ravindra in the New Zealand innings. In fact, out of his seven wickets in that crucial match, five were of the top-order batsmen. He also dismissed Daryl Mitchell, who scored a fast, dominating 134, and Tom Latham for a duck.
Shami’s wonderful performance with the ball at the semi-final of the 2023 World Cup made him the first Indian bowler to take 50 wickets in the ODI World Cup (in only 17 innings), and also the first Indian bowler to reach a 7-wicket haul in an ODI World Cup match. He also became the fastest one to take 50 wickets in the ODI World Cup by breaking the record of Australian bowler Mitchell Starc, who achieved this milestone in 19 innings.
With 24 wickets in 7 innings of the 2023 edition of the ODI World Cup, he also has the distinction of taking the most wickets by an Indian in a single edition of the World Cup. Zaheer Khan had earlier held this record with 21 wickets in the 2011 edition of the ODI World Cup.
Born in the Amroha district of Uttar Pradesh, the cricketing journey of the 33-year-old began with humble origins. His father was a farmer and a former fast bowler.
Shami, who played for Bengal in domestic cricket tournaments from 2010-11 to 2018-19, made his test debut against West Indies at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens in November 2013. He was already 28 by then. In his maiden test only, he showed great potential by taking 9 wickets across both innings for a mere 118 runs. It is the best haul by an Indian pacer on his debut test.
Till now, he has played 64 tests, from which he took 229 wickets with a bowling average of 27.71. Till today, he has achieved the distinction of taking five or more wickets in a test innings on six occasions. His best bowing performance in test cricket is 6 for 56 against Australia, which he achieved at Perth in December 2018.
He began his ODI career against Pakistan in January 2013, ten months earlier than his test career. He took a rather unimpressive 1 for 23 from nine overs in his first one-day international. Till now, he has played 101 one-day international matches, taking 195 wickets, with his best one-day bowling performance being at the above-mentioned crucial semi-final match against New Zealand. He got to play in only 23 T20 international matches to date, from where he took 24 wickets, with his best being 3 for 15.
Shami, who has an immaculate line, classy reverse swing and dangerous yorkers in his armoury, is often unplayable and has an edge over many of his compatriots in the slog overs of ODIs. Cricket lovers in India and abroad must be nurturing high hopes to see many more of his more than impressive performances in the years to come.
