Fit, fast and attacking the stumps, Mohammad Shami will ensure England get no respite when India’s spinners take a break
Alagappan Muthu in Rajkot08-Nov-2016Isn’t it a bit ironic that a fast bowler looks better in slow motion? The rhythm of the run-up, the intensity on his face, even the grunt as he lets the ball go seems to sound pleasant.Imagine a large ground, with an outfield so green you would be tempted to go out and have a picnic. That is Rajkot’s Saurashtra Cricket Association ground. Now picture it empty but for the odd person doing last-minute preparation. That is the SCA ground on Tuesday, the day before it makes its Test debut. There is a set of stumps at one end – actually it’s half of off and half of leg – and Mohammed Shami is at the other. It may be practice, but the ease with which he approaches the bowling crease is startling. This is a man not five months into his comeback from a debilitating knee injury.Shami has been helped in his recovery by the simplicity of his method. He has found after his struggles a delightfully repeatable bowling action: chest-on, arms at his sides, elbows cutting through the air all culminating in a high point of release. It hasn’t always been so. His tendency to take large strides as he ran in threw him off but he has worked on shortening them, which now affords him greater balance. Importantly, he gathers momentum all the way through, starting slowly, constantly building speed until, as he gets to the popping crease, he is at maximum. One direction of energy flow. Up.Ishant Sharma, the man he is likely to partner with in Rajkot, on the other hand begins with a gallop, a few short, quick strides to get himself going, then they become longer and more even for a time before he has to accelerate again. This up-down-up trend may possibly contribute to the number of times he takes a tumble on his follow through or even reduce the chances of the seam of the ball coming out upright. Ishant too is returning from a break – illness as opposed to injury – but he may not be India’s premier fast bowler anymore.Shami is faster, and though he has played only 19 Tests he is also the country’s best at reverse swing. Outside Asia, if he bowls straight, he gets picked off; here in India, attacking the stumps, his way of bowling, is just the thing to do. When touring batsmen welcome the introduction of a fast bowler after their mind, feet, bat and gloves end up in all the wrong places against spin, ensuring there are no soft overs is vital to suffocating the opposition. It is as good a wicket-taking method as any.That is why Shami is important to India. He affords their lead bowlers R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja some rest. When they return, the pressure is still on, because Shami doesn’t bowl the soft overs that the batsmen are after once they have been through the continuous examination from the spinners. If there is any reverse to be had, Shami extracts it.This was evident in the New Zealand series, spectacularly so when he bowled BJ Watling in Kolkata with one that shaped in through the air, hit a fullish length on off stump and then held its line to beat the outside edge. Shami dismissed the New Zealand wicketkeeper four out of six times, all within minutes of India realising there was reverse swing on offer.A grateful captain, Virat Kohli went out of his way to thank Shami for the New Zealand series win even though he took just eight wickets in three Tests. In a series where the spinners took 41 out of the 57 wickets that fell to bowlers, Kohli picked out a quick to thank. It was not just the wickets, though. It was the 75 overs during which the spinners – or at least one of them – could take a break without having to worry about pressure being released. Sometimes that’s what you need: not have a batting side slip out of your team’s grip when you are resting your tired fingers.Shami had to take cortisone injections and will that broken knee through the World Cup in 2015, before finally ceding to the need for surgery. That it was his knee troubling him made it worse because a seamer always has to put weight on it as he runs in. It is one thing to come back from an injury like that with skills intact, and quite another to then become one of the team’s go-to bowlers.There is nothing particularly mysterious about Shami. He pitches the ball up and makes the batsman play. That is all he needs, though. Having put in hours and hours to perfect his wrist position behind the ball, the seam invariable comes out pristinely. On a pitch like Rajkot, cracked, with large barren spots between patches of grass, he could get a bit of uneven bounce too.In a world easily wowed by the next new thing, Shami’s simplicity is refreshing. A mint-condition yesteryear sedan. When he has a bad day, it might seem like a teenager’s got behind the wheel, but when it’s good, well, sit back and enjoy the ride.
