Border-Gavaskar Trophy: India miss Shami boost for Bumrah from other end

When will Mohammed Shami join the Indian squad in Australia ?  This seems to be the overriding question as India look to regroup themselves quickly after the 10-wicket drubbing in the pink ball Test in Adelaide on Sunday, 8 December.

The 34-year-old seasoned paceman, who had returned to competitive cricket with Ranji Trophy last month after being out of action for a year since the 2023 ODI World Cup final, is being badly missed in the pace attack for the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT). While there are no dearth of pace bowling options on paper, Shami’s absence is being sorely felt as the lack of a consistent support for the spearhead Jasprit Bumrah.

The problem was rather pronounced in Adelaide where once the Australian batters saw Bumrah’s spell with due respect and caution, the pressure on them was visibly less as the relatively experienced Mohammed Siraj couldn’t pose a threat and rookie Harshit Rana was singled out for attack. This is where Shami’s probing line and ability to hit the deck will come in handy, but the question is from when?

 Captain Rohit Sharma's frustration was surely understandable when he said Bumrah couldn't be bowling from both ends.There have been reports that Shami’s kit is already on way Down Under and the talk was if he could come on board in the third Test in Gabba from 14 December, but captain Rohit Sharma sounded a word of caution on Sunday. ‘’We’re just monitoring him because while playing Syed Mushtaq Ali, he again got some swelling in his knee, which obviously hampers his preparation to come and play a Test match. We want to be very, very careful. We don’t want to bring him into a situation where he plays and then pulls up sore or something happens,’’ Rohit said. The realistic chance is that of him being available for the final two Tests: the Boxing Day affair at the MCG and the final one in Sydney.

 ‘’We want to be more than 100% sure with Shami, because it’s been a long time that he hasn’t played any cricket. We don’t want to put pressure on him to come here and do the job for the team. There are some professionals (the BCCI’s medical team) who are monitoring him,’’ the India captain added.

 The caution on the part of the team management in Australia is understandable, but they are faced with a Catch-22 situation at the moment with an overriding question mark on the workload issue of Bumrah. The Test vice-captain, who must have made the Indian fans’ hearts flutter when he went down for a while in the second Test with a groin niggle, has already picked up 11 wickets in the series and is too precious to be persisted as a stock bowler in Tests.

The legendary Sunil Gavaskar meanwhile joined the issue by saying that Bumrah should be playing in all five Tests, but it’s a call better left to the Indian dressing team.  The fact that Rohit used Bumrah for just four overs in the entire first session of Day II in Adelaide may be a reflection of not overloading his premier bowler. This is where the importance of Shami need not be overemphasised but truth be told, he still looked some distance away from the rigours of international cricket.

When Shami made his much-awaited comeback in a Ranji game against MP, he bowled 43.2 overs across two innings – but he still looked in need of shedding off some weight and receive a clean chit from the National Cricket Academy (NCA) to leave the shores for Australia. While Shami will be understandably eager to get back to business as soon as possible, any breakdown at this stage of his career may permanently damage his comeback chances.

Speaking to the regional media, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, coach of Bengal state team whom Shami is representing, said: ‘’He (Shami) has already shed around six kgs of his body weight. He has played seven T20 games in 13 days. Shami himself wanted to play fair amount of domestic cricket and inform NCA about how his body reacts.’’