Mohammed Shami is on his way to recovery after he was operated on for an Achilles tendon injury he picked up during the ODI World Cup last year. The old India quick, currently going through rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru and only recently began bowling in the nets, took time out to appear on a podcast and revealed some funny secrets of Indian training sessions.
Mohammed Shami topped the 2015 WC tally with 24 wickets from just seven innings also played a crucial role as India went unbeaten until their loss in the final to Australia.
During a lighter note while talking about small battles between batsmen and bowlers during net sessions of the Indian team, Shami told that Rohit Sharma prefers not facing him while Virat Kohli likes it when you challenge him.
“Virat se to mera hamesha se rehta hai ki hum ek dusre ko challenge dete hain (with Virat it’s always like we challenge each other). He likes to hit good shots, I like to get him out. The bonding and friendship reflects in that. It also helps you focus and put in effort as you setup simulating for example two imaginary slips two gully fielders(thus I challenged Virat) to come at me and score runs. We enjoy such things,” said Shami.
In terms of Rohit Sharma’s stance towards this matter, Mohammed Shami simply smiled and declared “skipper mana kar deta hai.”
“Rohit to pehle hi kehta hai ‘mai isko khelna pasand nahi karta’. Woh to pehle hi mana kar deta hai (Rohit says I don’t like to face him, he refuses to bat against me),” said Shami with a smile.
For competitive cricket again, Mohammed Shami will have to be cleared by NCA medical staff and the BCCI after missing the whole season of Indian Premier League as well as T20 World Cup this year.
There are speculations that the veteran pacer might play some role in Bangladesh’s two-Test series in September-October this year.
