New Delhi: India’s premium tearaway pacer Mohammed Shami has missed the flight to Australia which Team India will be taking next month to take part in the five-Test Border Gavaskar Trophy. It was highly expected of Shami to make the cut in India’s squad for the epic Test saga against the Aussies as he was going well on his road to recovery, being on the sidelines for nearly a year and not taking the field.
On Friday, when the BCCI announced India’s squad for the upcoming Australia Tests, Shami’s exclusion came as the biggest shock as news was around the corner that he is set to be one main pacers alongside Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj in India’s BGT squad. A third pacer was desperately required for Team India to provide support to Bumrah but as things currently stand, India are taking a formidable pace attack with them sans Shami.
Why Shami couldn’t make it?
The 34-year-old right-arm pacer is quite active on social media and regularly shares updates with his fans – be it professional or personal. Having undergone surgery on his Achilles tendon (ankle) in February this year, Shami was advised to rest so as to recover well. He last took the field for Team India in the 2023 ODI World Cup and since then, has been dealing with an ankle injury.
After the surgery, he was on his road to recovery and regularly shared updates of his progress on his social media handles. This made the cricketing world hopeful of seeing Shami back in action for India. His recent videos of bowling full tilt had instantly gone viral which made it all the more sure that he is set to be included in the India Test squad for the Border Gavaskar series.
According to a report in Times of India, a recent swelling on his knee cast doubt on his availability for the series, despite his rehab progress. Hence, BCCI decided to go against taking an “undercooked” Shami with them to Australia, as conveyed by India skipper Rohit Sharma as well. The move can be hailed in terms of the BCCI being concerned about their players and not taking any more chances with Shami’s recovery, giving him full time to be at his best.
It is noteworthy that minutes before BCCI dropped the squad for the BGT series, Shami had posted a video of him bowling full throttle on “X” (formerly Twitter). Shami posted the same video a few hours before on his Instagram handle with the caption – “Speed is just the beginning. It’s the skill and heart behind every delivery that sets the pace.”
View this post on Instagram
Who are the other pacers?
Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna will be bolstering the Indian pace attack in Australia other than Bumrah and Siraj. The attack will see two new inclusions as well – Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy, who bagged their maiden Test call-ups for India (being the travelling reserves for the ongoing NZ Test series). Pace trio of Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, and Khaleel Ahmed will be the traveling reserves for India in the series.
Other than Shami, Axar Patel was omitted from the squad as well and Kuldeep Yadav was left out due to a chronic left groin issue that he is currently dealing with. The Test series starts on November 22 in Perth.
Here’s India’s 18-member squad for Australia Tests –
Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed
