By: Sandipan Bose
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. India’s first-change pacer Mohammad Shami is one such case, who has been desperate to prove his worth in India’s team after a long injury late-off. So, when he got the opportunity to come back strong into Test cricket, he didn’t want to waste the opportunity.
And he didn’t. Shami was amongst wickets straight away while playing his 13th Test match in Antigua. Not much has changed from the time he made his first Test appearance nearly three years ago against the same opposition – the West Indies, which was quite apparent at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
As one would have expected, Shami bowled straight. He bowled fast. He could also swing the ball either ways, which made him sensation on his debut Test match in front of his home crowd at the Eden Gardens.
In other words, Shami could do no wrong. He bowled full-length deliveries more often than not, kept the short ball as his surprise package and kept attacking the stumps. This resulted in Shami emerging as the most successful bowler in the Indian line-up.
Not that Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra and Ravichandran Ashwin were not impressive with the ball. They were all good in their own ways, but Shami was a special. Effectively, it was his spell of four West Indies wickets at the top-order that made quite a difference to the Indian attack.
Shami, who was a little tired after India took the second new ball, got some help from Umesh Yadav, who also took some important wickets to rattle the hosts. The Nagpur pacer was also fast and bowled a few short ones quite intelligently. On a few occasions, he got the ball to move away from the right-handers, which was quite a sight!
