With a bumper home season coming followed by the challenging tour of South Africa, the players need to be fully fit to do well consistently through the rigorous season and fast-bowler Mohammed Shami has already started his planning.
The last couple of years have been nothing short of a nightmare for the Bengal pacer as far as injuries are concerned. His excellent performance in the 2015 World Cup was followed by a serious knee injury which forced him to remain on the sidelines for 15 months after he underwent a knee surgery.
He returned to the team last year but once again suffered the same knee injury during the England Test series and took close to 4 months to recover from the injury. He then returned to the ODI squad after a two-year gap during the Champions Trophy and was recently the part of the squad for the Test series against Sri Lanka. The right-pacer was rested for the limited-overs series against the Islanders and he has used that time to improve his fitness.
The bowler took to Twitter to say that his fitness test in the National Cricket Academy (NCA) has gone well, meaning he is all set to wreak havoc with the ball.
“Fitness test done well in NCA Bangalore,” he tweeted.
Fitness test done well in NCA Bangalore pic.twitter.com/sZDMchh4XI
— Mohammad Shami (@MdShami11) September 7, 2017
Meanwhile, head coach Ravi Shastri has already made it clear that any player will have to pass the fitness parameters set by the team management to make it to the team.
“There are certain (fitness) parameters put in place and a player will have to fit into those parameters. That’s the fitness part and then the skill element will come. So get that very clear. There are certain parameters and it’s not difficult. If someone doesn’t fit into that, he is really unfit or lazy. If you are aiming to be the best fielding side in the world, you fit into those parameters and then of course the skill element comes into play,” he was quoted as saying by Indian Express earlier this month.