Uncertain Future for Jasprit Bumrah Puts Pressure on Mohammed Shami's Comeback

Returning to international duty after being out of play for 14 months can be challenging, especially after undergoing heel surgery and experiencing a side strain and repeated knee swelling that has continuously pushed back a return-to-play plan. However, the ideal situation would require a carefully curated rehabilitation process that would help the player regain confidence, strength, and agility. A combination of physical therapy, conditioning, and rest would be necessary to ensure that the player slowly but surely returns to full fitness. Additionally, the player's mindset must be positive and focused to overcome any potential setbacks that may arise during the rehabilitation period.

To ease back into the scheme of things, right?

It’s a luxury Mohammed Shami doesn’t enjoy.

India’s most experienced active pacer must hit the ground running when he plays his first game for the country since November 2023. The heartbreak of the 50-over World Cup final is a distant memory for most people but for the 34-year-old, it’s his most abiding recent recollection of international cricket.

Now, though, Shami must gird his loins, try and put the last year and a quarter out of his mind and mentally prepare himself to spearhead the Indian attack, certainly over the next three weeks and perhaps a little beyond that too. After all, there are huge question marks over the immediate future of Jasprit Bumrah, the world’s best all-format bowler. Shami has no time to slowly reacquaint himself with top-flight cricket, especially given the relative lack of experience of the pace unit around him.

Shami’s first test will be at Eden Gardens on Wednesday, in the first of five Twenty20 Internationals against England. It won’t be his efficacy and wicket-taking skills that the leadership group will be fussed about. Shami’s quality isn’t in doubt despite so much time away from the sport – he didn’t play competitively for 360 days before turning out for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy in November. He boasts more than 400 international sticks, is regarded highly the world over and dreaded in Australia, whose players were delighted they didn’t have to front up against him in the recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series.

Shami unlikely to play all five T20Is against England

How Shami pulls up physically over the next fortnight is what the decision-making core – ODI and Test skipper Rohit Sharma, head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar – will be interested in. It’s unlikely he will play all five T20s, but whatever game-time he gets will break him back into the national set-up. Of greater import will be how he shapes up during and after the three subsequent One-Day Internationals, India’s final white-ball engagements before they travel to Dubai for the Champions Trophy.

Shami is almost as vital to India’s plans as Bumrah. The latter is in a league of his own, a wicket-taking behemoth at different stages of an ODI innings, given his versatility, his mastery of the new ball and the old, and a veritable arsenal that has repeatedly bemused and flummoxed the best. Shami is only marginally behind; he is most dangerous when the ball is new because of his seam presentation and a wonderful wrist that allows him to get the ball to go both ways. He isn’t the same force towards the end overs, which is what has allowed Arshdeep Singh to sneak into the ODI side ahead of Mohammed Siraj. But when he strikes as often as he does in his first spell, his occasional backend profligacy is a punt worth taking.

It's been a difficult last three or four months for Shami. Just when he seemed primed for a return, he was beset by unrelated injuries that kept pegging his comeback back. It didn’t help that unsubstantiated reports of a showdown with Rohit during the Bengaluru Test against New Zealand in October surfaced dramatically. Rohit’s assertion that Shami wasn’t at full fitness was received, consequently, with a pinch of salt until the BCCI’s medical team stepped in towards the middle of December to put the issue to bed.

Shami showed pace and perseverance for Bengal in all three formats since reintegrating with the state side in November, but the next month and a half will test his mettle, character and leadership skills immensely. If Bumrah doesn’t turn up fit for even the first part of the Champions Trophy, Shami must not only hold his own but rally Arshdeep and slip back into the mentoring role that he has shared with Bumrah over the past several years. He knows he will be under great scrutiny for reasons beyond his control; pressure has been his constant ally since his Test debut in November 2013. He is now 11 years older and vastly wiser, and therefore better prepared than most to handle what by far will be the sternest examination of his cricketing career.

Time isn’t Shami’s ally. At 34, a fast bowler’s best years are usually behind him. For all his textbook-adherence when it comes to fast bowling, Shami has been anything but conventional and he must channel that inner self as he approaches the final few years of a journey of ecstasy and agony.

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