Tarish Bhatt
If India go the distance, which MS Dhoni and his men intend doing, pacer Mohammed Shami could be a serious contender for the player of the tournament award. Shami is one of the leading wicket-takers in the 2015 World Cup after India’s convincing win over Bangladesh in the quarterfinal match in Adelaide on Thursday.
The Bengal pacer, who originally hails from Uttar Pradesh, has 17 wickets from six matches. The impact of his performance has been big and benefited his team the most, which makes him a serious contender. He missed one match of the league phase against UAE due to a knee injury.
Sources also insisted that nothing is decided as of now but the way Shami has performed in the competition, he is one of the contenders. There are quite a few of them who are close to Shami’s 17 scalps, but this Indian pacer has is the biggest turn-around story of the World Cup.
“It’s not only his village which is celebrating. The entire nation is celebrating his bowling spells. He has changed the profile of India pace bowling in the World Cup along with Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma,” a source revealed. Sources said the panel may close look at some of the Indian batsmen like Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina if India retain the World Cup.
Australia’s Mitchell Starc, New Zealand’s Trent Alexander Boult and South Africa’s Imran Tahir are the other top bowlers in the World Cup. Sources said that Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara will also make it to the list of the contenders for the award. With four back-to-back centuries in the World Cup, Sangakkara is still the top-most run scorer in the World Cup. Unfortunately, his team lost to South Africa in the first quarterfinal.
In the last World Cup in the sub-continent, Yuvraj Singh was the man of the tournament with his all-round skills. He finished 8th in the list of run-scorer (362 runs). With the ball, he was the sixth on the list of the highest wicket-takers (15 scalps from nine matches).
