First Test: Mohammed Shami will look to finish the job for India today

Not long ago, Mohammed Shami was the target of derision on social media for his poor bowling spell against Pakistan in a humiliating defeat for India at the T20 World Cup. Now, the fast bowler is the toast of the town as the man who stood by him—his captain Virat Kohli—heaped praise on him for crossing a historic milestone in Test cricket.

With a five-wicket haul against South Africa in the first innings of the Centurion Test, Shami (5/44) notched up 200 wickets in Test cricket, becoming the fifth fast bowler to do so, and the quickest among them (103 innings).

It has been a good year for the 31-year-old, picking up 21 wickets in 5 matches, and there is still the final day’s play of the first Test to go. With India aggressively pushing for a win—needing six wickets to win—Shami is expected to add to his tally.

He impressed particularly at the World Test Championship final against New Zealand and the England series that followed. It was expected that the Indian pace duo of Shami and Jasprit Bumrah would run riot on the South African pitches, and that is exactly what the two of them have done over the two innings, making full use of the bounce and seam movement that the Centurion track offered.

Interestingly, according to an ESPNCricinfo stat, of the 80 international bowlers to reach 200 Test wickets, only seven have had a better strike rate than Shami’s 49.4—Kagiso Rabada, Dale Steyn, Waqar Younis, Malcolm Marshall, Allan Donald, Mitchell Starc, Fred Trueman. Certainly not bad company to be in.

Shami’s career has seen many ups and downs, nasty criticisms and euphoric highs since he made his Test debut in 2013. During a bad phase under head coach Ravi Shastri and bowling coach Bharat Arun, he all but quit cricket, yet the two coaches helped him out of it.

“Shami was totally disillusioned. He was on the verge of giving up the game,” Arun told The Indian Express. “When Ravi and I sat down with him, he said he was ‘extremely angry with life’. We said, ‘It is good that you are angry. You should be.

“We told him, ‘You are a fast bowler; anger isn’t bad! Let’s get the bitterness out of it. Life has turned you into a very angry man, but what are you going to do now? You can quit, that’s your choice but you can also tell yourself that I am angry, how do I channelise it?”

They advised him to spend a month at the National Cricket Academy to get back into shape and take his anger out on his bowling. Arun says he emerged out of it a better, stronger man.

After the brilliant spell against South Africa, an ecstatic Shastri tweeted: “Shabash Sultan of Bengal. Dekh ke maza aah gaya (It was fun to watch)…. God bless.”

Shami told reporters that it was a result of hard work and credited his father and brother for helping him.

“When you are a kid, when you are a struggler, the only dream you harbour is to play for India and play alongside those whom you watch on TV and idolise,” he said, as quoted by The Indian Express.

“It’s about working hard, which is in your hands. And when you put in an honest effort, you get the result

“I came from a place where, even today, facilities are limited. Every day, I had to travel 30km and my father used to accompany me. So, all credit goes to my father and my brother.”

Though is rain is forecasted for the final day’s play and a stubborn South African captain Dean Elgar remains at the crease with a half-century, Shami and his partner Bumrah will be keen to finish off the job and end the year on a high.