Team India’s seam bowling sultan, Mohammad Shami, is all set to miss the upcoming season of the IPL, as the pacer recently gave an update about his fitness on social media.
Mohammad Shami underwent Archilies Tendon surgery because of which he was struggling throughout the World Cup and has not played any matches for Team India after the completion of the One Day World Cup in 2023.
Looking at the current scenario, it would ideally take Shami four to six months to fully recover from the injury, which means that the chances are huge that Shami may miss the upcoming T20 World Cup, which is going to be held in the month of June.
Now the big question arises: is India going to miss Mohammad Shami very badly going into this T20 World Cup?
Let’s understand this deeply. There is no doubt that Shami had a dream performance in the 2023 World Cup with the ball. The pacer was in red-hot form and picked up 24 wickets in just 7 matches.
But it was a 50-over format. Shami has played in a total of three Twenty20 World Cups in his entire career till now. He was on the team that played in the Consicative World Cup in 2021–22.
But even after playing in three Twenty20 World Cups, Shami has made just 23 appearances for Team India, and the pacer made his debut way back in 2014.
Shami has picked up 24 wickets till now for team India in 23 matches in which he played with an economy of 8.94. Shami has not been playing t20 cricket for India on a continuous basis, be it his injury,form rest, etc., but it is quite evident that team India considers him a bowler for the test and Odi format but not for the t20 format.
Now if Shami misses the T20 World Cup, there is another question that arises: Will Hardik Pandya be seen bowling for the Mumbai Indians in all the matches?
Looking at the current situation, it is evident that Team India will go with four specialist pace bowlers in the playing 11, with Jasprit Bumrah leading the attack.
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Apart from Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh also walks into the side, as he has been playing Twenty20 cricket for Team India for quite some time now. The pacer has picked up 62 wickets for team India and is set to be Bumrah’s partner with new ball and even at death.
The rest of the positions are still not sure because for these two slots, India has multiple options: Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, and Avesh Khan.
So in such a scenario, IPL performance will play a huge role in determining the bowlers who are going to catch the flight to the Twenty20 World Cup.
Now, looking at the present situation, Team India has multiple options of players who could replace Shami in the squad. However, they might not be as threatening as Mohammad Shami because of the skill that Shami has.
But as the legends of the game say, “Something is much, much better than nothing.”
