Mohammed Shami’s return to Team India for the five-match Test series against Australia will have to wait as he was named in Bengal squad for SMAT 2024.
Team India pacer Mohammed Shami’s return to international cricket might have to wait a little while longer. The Bengal fast bowler last played international cricket for India exactly a year back – on November 19 – when India lost the ODI World Cup 2023 final against Australia in Ahmedabad.
Since then Shami has been sidelined with ankle injury since then and even underwent surgery to repair the damage. The pacer made his comeback into domestic cricket last week, turning out for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy 2024 match against Madhya Pradesh in Indore. Shami picked up 7 wickets in the match as Bengal edged past MP by 11 runs.
On Tuesday, Shami was picked as part of Bengal’s T20 squad for the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024. The selectors want to assess Shami’s fitness by seeing him in a few more domestic matches before they decide if he is fit enough to return to the Indian side for the second half of Border Gavaskar Trophy in the India vs Australia 2024 five-Test series.
Playing his first competitive match after a year, the 34-year-old, who underwent a surgery for Achilles tendon injury on his left leg, claimed a match haul of seven wickets and also excelled with the bat against Madhya Pradesh to help Bengal secure their first win of the season. BCCI medical team and national selectors want Shami to play a few more competitive games in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy to check if his body is holding up after multiple games even if it’s a white ball format tournament, according to sources.
Akash Chopra “Mohammed Shami has played a Ranji match.We weren’t able to see much of his bowling as it was not being streamed. We did see the wickets he took. I’d say he is undercooked.”pic.twitter.com/QUdXZGOSwR
— Sujeet Suman (@sujeetsuman1991) November 18, 2024
Talented batsman Sudip Kumar Gharami was named Bengal captain. Bengal will begin their campaign against Punjab in their Group A match in Rajkot.
Hyderabad, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab are the other teams in Group A. The final is slated in Bengaluru on December 15.
Bengal squad: Sudip Kumar Gharami (C), Abishek Porel (wk), Sudip Chatterjee, Shahbaz Ahmed, Karan Lal, Writtick Chatterjee, Ritwick Roy Chowdhury, Shakir Habib Gandhi (wk), Ranjot Singh Khaira, Prayas Ray Barman, Agniv Pan (wk), Pradipta Pramanik, Saksham Chaudhary, Mohammed Shami, Ishan Porel, Mohammed Kaif, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Sayan Ghosh, Kanishk Seth and Soummyadip Mandal
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