Mohammed Shami has been formally selected to represent India in the T20 World Cup as Jasprit Bumrah’s substitute due to injury. “Mohammed Shami has been selected by the All-India Senior Selection Committee to replace Jasprit Bumrah in the Indian team for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. Shami will join the team in Brisbane before the warm-up matches, after arriving in Australia,” BCCI announced.
Another significant development is the addition of Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj as reserve or backup players. Shardul was chosen as a like-for-like replacement for Deepak Chahar, who, like Bumrah, has been ruled out of the T20 World Cup due to a back injury. Siraj took the place of Shami, who had initially been one of the standby players.
Shami had to demonstrate his fitness at the National Sport Academy in Bengaluru after being forced out of cricket due to a bout with COVID-19, delaying the news of Bumrah’s injury replacement.
The veteran seamer underwent fitness drills and received a fitness certificate from the NCA. He hasn’t played in a T20 since the T20 World Cup in the UAE last year. He flew to Australia on Thursday and is now in Brisbane with the rest of the Indian team. They will play two official exhibition games there against Australia and New Zealand before their Super 12 campaign gets underway against Pakistan on October 23 in Melbourne.
The team led by Rohit Sharma arrived in Australia on October 6 and remained there till Friday. They faced Western Australia in two exhibition games. They prevailed by 13 runs in the first game but fell by 36 runs in the second.
Shami is thought to have received the nod over an in-form Siraj despite not participating in a white-ball match for India since July of this year because of his knowledge of the game and ball handling abilities. Shami’s ability to adjust to the Australian conditions worked in his favour, in addition to the fact that he was always the preferred option because he was on the official standby list.
When an ICC event was last conducted in Australia in 2015, he was among India’s best bowlers.