Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar narrated an interesting story of how a little push from team management revived Mohammed Shami’s career when the fast bowler’s career was going nowhere at one moment.
It was India’s last tour to the rainbow nation in 2018 when the visitors were 0-2 down in the series and in the third Test match, they were defending the target of 241 as the team management gave him a final chance to prove his worth. At one time, the hosts were cruising with the score of 124/1 but Shami’s fifer triggered a collapse as they fell short by 63 runs.
Shami completed his 200 Test wickets in this series
“At the Wanderers, the last time around in 2018, was when they actually got stuck into him apparently because till then he hadn’t really delivered. They said to him that on this pitch if you’re not going to take wickets then.
“So the word is and I am not too sure that Ravi gave him a rocket. And then he came out and destroyed South Africa. Sometimes you know, you need to put an arm around a player, sometimes you’ve got to just get stuck into him,” Gavaskar said on air.
Gavaskar also lauded his efforts in the ongoing test series. Shami picked 8 wickets in the first match of the series when India achieved their first-ever win in Centurion beating the hosts by 113 runs. On Wednesday again he provided two crucial breakthroughs in form of Temba Bavuma and Kyle Verreynne in space of 3 balls as India struck back after lunch.
“Somebody of his calibre, you can’t keep him out of the game for a long time. He had seen Yadav take a couple of wickets, he had seen Bumrah bowl splendidly and take 2 wickets. So he wanted to contribute.
“And he came in and did it at the right time. That Bavuma and Petersen partnership was a delight to watch but at the same time it was threatening India, so they needed a wicket at that stage and Shami delivered it,” he added.
Earlier in the Centurion Test, he completed his 200 test wickets. Before this test, he picked 206 wickets in 56 Tests with an average of 27.3 with 6 fifers. He also picked 148 wickets in 79 ODIs with an average of 25.62.
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