Mohammed Shami has been rested for Bengal's opening game of the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Delhi. The domestic One-Day tournament is set to commence on Saturday (December 21) and Shami was named in the 20-member squad announced by Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). However, now he will sit out of the opening clash to be played in Hyderabad.
Interestingly, despite turning up in the Ranji Trophy (for one match) and Syed Mushtaq Ali after recovering from injury, Shami hasn't been called up to the Indian squad for the Australia tour. It was widely speculated that the pacer might join the team in Australia midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
But there has been no such update even as India skipper Rohit Sharma also gave an ultimatum to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) to provide an official update on Shami's fitness. He also confirmed that Shami was being troubled by swelling in his knee. "I understand he's playing a lot of cricket back home, but there have been some complaints about his knee as well.
"So, look, the last thing you want is the player coming here and then pulling out in the middle of the game. You know what happens when that kind of thing happens. So, there is no way we want to take that chance unless we are like, not 100%, 200% sure, we're not going to take any risk.
"But yeah, like I said in the last press conference, the door is open if those guys at the NCA feel that he is okay to go and recover and play, we'll be happy to have him," Rohit said at the end of the Brisbane Test. Mohammed Shami has been under the watch of Nitin Patel, the Centre of Excellence's head of sports science. The team headed by Patel has been travelling across the country to monitor Shami's progress.
With less than a week left for the Melbourne Test and there being a quick turnaround for the last Test in Sydney, it seems unlikely that the pacer will be travelling to Australia now. Instead, the Indian team will now be hoping for him to gear up for the upcoming Champions Trophy which is set to be played from February 19 to March 9.
