ICC World Cup 2019: Mohammed Shami 2.0 has emerged as a strong contender for India's World Cup squad
A regular in a red ball cricket, Shami has struggled to cement his place in limited overs squad. But soon after he earned a recall to the ODI squad in the home series against the West Indies in October 2018, followed by a brilliant run in the Test and the ODIs in Australia and maintaining the same form in New Zealand as well, he has definitely booked his ticket to England for the ICC Cricket World 2019.
The 28-year-old has overcome fitness issues majorly his knee injury to give his best for India. Shami emerged as the man of the series for his nine wickets in the recently concluded five-match ODI series against New Zealand. He also became the fastest Indian to claim 100 ODI wickets, during the first one-dayer against New Zealand at Napier.
Shami version 2.0 is all about his accuracy. He was earlier accused of straying to leg once too often, searching for wickets. Now he has shifted his line of attack to the left ever so slightly. While Shami's run-up and action are fairly smooth, the secret of his success lies in his wrist. His wrist is firmly tilted at the point of delivery and his slightly split fingers come down so straight that the seam invariably comes out bolt upright.
At the moment Shami is bowling with the new ball. Bumrah is going to be back in the side then he will probably take the new ball and Shami will have to alter his role in the side. And looking at his (Shami) bowling style, he should be finishing his quota before 40 overs.
In ODIs (2019) Shami has picked 14 wickets in 7 matches with an average of 20.64 and brilliant economy of 4.92. So actually Shami did a Bumrah in the absence of Bumrah. And he has also thrown a possibility for India going ahead which is if the team can back its top 7 to score the runs and they don't need Bhuvi at 8, then the team can actually play Shami and Bumrah the odd day because each team has to play 9 matches in England and these 3 ( Shami, Bumrah and Bhuvi) can be rotated accordingly.
Probable World Cup Squad : Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant/KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar/Ravindra Jadeja