Shami, who will lead India’s attack in the home series, attended the first practice session of India at Eden Gardens on Sunday, January 19. Shami has been seen to show some promise and bowled at full tilt for over an hour. However, he still seemed to be complaining somewhat and limped back to the dressing room. However, he soon returned to the ground and chattily engaged with his former teammates from Bengal while gingerly maneuvering his heavily strapped left knee.
Shami attended the practicing session with heavy strapping on his left knee and began with a warm-up session done under the watchful eyes of bowling coach Morne Morkel.
With short strides in his running-in, he bowled for about an hour before taking part in a very gentle fielding drill in order to test his knee.
Just as doubts started to creep in regarding the fast bowler’s readiness, he turned back the clock with a long run-up and his trademark fiery spells, bowling to youngsters like Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma in the nets
Shami’s rhythm progressively settled down. He took his time to extract bounce and movement, putting the batters in trouble more than once.
However, young keeper-batter Dhruv Jurel gave it everything in his power to take on Shami and hit him for a couple of aggressive shots, giving the veteran a vivid workout with the ball.
Though strenuous, Shami continued to bowl full tilt for forty-five minutes in all without needing help from the team physio or strength-and-conditioning coach.
But Shami wasn’t done after the nets.
He moved to an adjacent area for length-bowling practice, where he and Morkel had a detailed chat.
There, the two worked hard on achieving certain lengths with Shami coming into his own by hitting the two sticks set up for the exercise with extreme accuracy.
He, then, joined Hardik Pandya and Harshit Rana for further practice, also brainstorming during the session
Given Jasprit Bumrah’s injury doubt, the fitness of Shami matters most to the Indian think tank.
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