 "Mohammed Shami's last competitive before starring in Bengal's thrilling victory over Madhya Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy was in last year's ICC World Cup. Image: Instagram")
After starring in their thrilling 11-run victory over Madhya Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy Mohammed Shami has been included in Bengal’s squad for the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Senior pacer Shami had collected seven wickets across the match in Indore, including 4/54 in the first innings in what was his first appearance in a match at any level since the ICC World Cup final against Australia in Ahmedabad last year.
After his seven-wicket match-haul red ball, Shami will be hoping to impress with the white ball in the Mushtaq Ali, India’s premier domestic T20 event that gets underway this Saturday.
As reported by PTI earlier, Shami’s inclusion in the Bengal T20 squad is part of a fitness assessment ahead of a potential return to India’s team for the latter half of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy five-Test series beginning in Perth on Friday.
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.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsBCCI 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, as per sources.
Also Read | Mohammed Shami: ‘Don’t want to rush and risk getting injured again’
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 for Syed Mushtaq Ali 2024: 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.
With PTI inputs