Recently, Indian quickie Mohammed Shami, who is primarily renowned for his stupendous performance in ODI World Cups. Stated that he was puzzled by the decisions made by team management to let him sit on the bench during crucial phases of the events in 2019 edition.
Consequently, he expressed his thoughts in an interview on Shubhankar Mishra’s YouTube show ‘Unplugged’.
Shami has a remarkable record in ODIs with 195 wickets taken in 100 innings at an average of 23.68 including five five-wicket hauls. His World Cup stats are even more impressive with 55 wickets from just 18 matches and thus make him India’s highest wicket taker at ICC events and fifth overall.
Thinking back about the 2019 edition of the World Cup, Shami said “In 2019 I did not play first four or five games. Next game I took hat-trick then picked up five wickets and then next match four as well. Same thing happened in twenty twenty three – same thing happened.”
Shami emerged as the leading wicket-taker of the tournament with twenty-four scalps from seven matches during the event held back in year twenty-three. When he was introduced into playing eleven after Hardik Pandya got injured.
“And it makes me to wonder why every team needs good players?” Shami asked rhetorically. “I took thirteen wickets two days ago.” But still it was insufficient.
He missed out on selection for their final league match against Sri Lanka and semi-final versus New Zealand. (Which India lost by eighteen runs) despite capturing fourteen victims in fours fixtures played during this year’s edition.
“Neither do I have questions nor do I have answers to them,” continued Shami. While still appearing confused. “I can only prove myself if given an opportunity; you gave me one chance, three matches thirteen wickets later we lost to New Zealand. In total I played four matches and picked up fourteen wickets in 2019. In twenty three, I took seven and twenty four wickets respectively.”
Shami was playing in the 2019 World Cup under Virat Kohli’s captaincy and Ravi Shastri as the head coach.
However, Shami’s consistent performance whenever he gets an opportunity to play shows that full utilization of players is very important, particularly in crucial competitions such as the World Cup.
