A tone of resignation punctuates Badruddin Siddiqui’s shrill voice. “Usko aur kya sabit karna hain?” he asks, rhetorically, to the omission of Mohammed Shami, one of India’s greatest all-format seamers and Badruddiun’s most famous product. “What else does he need to prove?” “He has art, wickets, fitness, form, aur kya chahiye?” he fumes to this masthead and fails to wrap his head around Shami’s continued non-inclusion from Team India. “I simply don’t understand why!” he says, his tenor shrivelling.
Most Shami sympathisers would relate to his coach’s angst. In the last three months, since the onset of the domestic season, he has straddled in all three formats, excelled in each and regained much of the sharpness that intermittent injuries had eroded. In four Ranji Trophy games, he bowled an average of 20 overs an innings, nabbed 20 wickets at 18.60, crucial to Bengal sitting atop their pool; in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he grabbed 16 in seven games and in Vijay Hazare Trophy he has 11 at 22.50 in five games, dispensing nearly nine overs a game. He repeats the same question: “Unko aur kya sabit karna hain?” Shami does not have to prove anything. Most of the selectors and team management too would agree. “He is unlike so many players who are in the team who plays a token domestic game or two, proves their fitness and then comes back to the team instantly,” he gripes at the perceived injustice.
What then is keeping him out of the team remains a mystery. Do they doubt his ability to last a full series? Is he not in their 2027 World Cup plans at all? Or are they just assessing his form and fitness over the full season to recall him, as though he needs to pass an endurance test? Or are they not convinced of what they have seen of him? Or is it a lack of communication on fitness? Chief selector Ajit Agarkar once claimed that Shami doesn’t update them on his fitness. Shami retorted, saying it is not his job.
Some of their apprehensions are valid. Betting on an ageing and injury-prone seamer, he would be 36 when the tournament winks in, entails high risk. Building a pace axis around him and Jasprit Bumrah, equally susceptible to injuries, could leave India hurtling for alternatives if at least one of them gets injured in the eleventh hour. The stick-thin stock of quality seamers on the domestic circuit means that the selectors would rather groom someone than rather pluck someone from obscurity. It’s a defensive mindset, but not entirely without rationale. In short, India don’t want to pin their World Cup hopes on two high-class but inclined-to-breakdown seamers in their 30s.
Some, though, are baffling. Shami, along with Bumrah, are two of the finest seamers India had produced. Shami has a big-stage fascination. He is India’s highest wicket-taker in World Cups (55 at 13.53 in 18 games); he holds the most five-wicket hauls in the tournament (four), and has the fire burning in him. “We came so close in 2023. Winning the 2027 (edition) is my dream,” he said last October. The trifecta of Bumrah, Shami and Siraj could render tunes of doom to batsmen on the hard and bouncy tracks of South Africa. None of the alternatives India have experimented exude as much as dread as them. Harshit Rana is passing through a prolonged teething-in phase; Prasidh Krishna has not shed his erratic tendencies, Nitish Kumar Reddy has not climbed the next step. Red hot tearaways are not knocking on the selectors’ doors either.
So the door remains ajar for Shami. His numerous tales of comebacks fill the coach with hope. “I, and I am sure Shami too, will have a lot of hope. He is not someone who gives up easily. If he had, he would not have made the career he had. He would have fallen by the side long ago,” he says.
There are several examples he could furnish of Shami’s indefatigability. But this one remains close to heart. After the knee injury he sustained in 2024, he returned to his farmhouse at Alinagar, Sahaspur, where he has a makeshift nets facility. “Every single day, several times, he used to run bare feet in the mud to ensure that he is fully fit. He bowled a lot, hundreds of balls, in nets, to regain his rhythm. At this age, when he has proved everything and achieved a lot, but still showing this level of commitment was amazing,” he says.
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Most of Bengal’s games are not telecast on television or on apps. But if there is any live match, highlights package or a clip on social media, he watches it multiple times. He is pleased with what he has seen of late. “He is in great shape and bowling with great rhythm. When he gets into the rhythm, when he is running up smoothly, everything falls into place. If he keeps bowling like this, I am sure he would be difficult for the selectors to ignore,” he observes. But then the same question haunts him: “Unko aur kya sabit karna hain?” Perhaps, he, Shami and his fans will get the answers as the new year rolls along.
