Mohammed Shami vs Shardul Thakur: It's a choice between high-risk cricket and flexibility for India

Mohammed Shami took a five-wicket haul in the last ODI series before the 2023 Cricket World Cup and yet he had to sit out of the first four matches as Men in Blue romped to four straight wins. Team India’s strategy, which they had followed for a while in the build-up to the World Cup, was to pick only three of their best bowlers and put them together with three all-rounders. It has largely been Jasprit Bumah, when fit, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur. World Cup 2023:  News |  Schedule |  Results |  Points table Such a strategy had seen a world-class bowler like Shami warm the bench and he got opportunities only when management decided to rest Siraj. What the three bowlers and three all-rounders strategy offered was six bowling options and batting till No. 8. Circumstances, however, have been such that after four straight wins, India were forced to drop Thakur for Shami. Pandya injured his ankle in the Bangladesh game and without him, it was too risky to play Thakur as the only seam-bowling all-rounder. After all, Thakur didn’t offer the same quality of bowling or batting. While Shami was an upgrade as a bowler coming into the side, Thakur could not have been India’s No. 6 batter, hence, Suryakumar Yadav has been given that responsibility.

Shardul’s omission and Shami’s subsequent fiery performances, in which he has taken 14 wickets in just three matches, have led to a social media meltdown against Thakur and in favour of the senior pacer. From verified accounts to trolls, everyone is busy comparing Shami to Shardul, slamming Team India management, and declaring that everything done before Shami walked into the playing XI was wrong. Let us remind people of India’s win ratio with Thakur in the playing XI in 2023. It stands at a whopping 13 wins from 16 ODIs this year and only two defeats. One game against Pakistan in the Asia Cup was abandoned due to rain. In these 13 wins, Shardul took 15 wickets at an average of 29.66. With the bat, he accumulated only 29 runs but then he batted only thrice. Still, looking at Shami’s current numbers and Shardul’s stats, it’s easy to make an argument that the pacer is the right choice instead of the all-rounder but here we would be discounting a lot of factors, one of them being how rapidly the game has changed over the years. With 300+ scores becoming the new normal in ODIs, a team’s batting being restricted to just No. 7 is a strategy fraught with risk. The 2023 World Cup has seen 10 350+ scores with South Africa scoring the highest of all time, 428/5 against Sri Lanka. Overall 16 300+ scores have been registered in the ongoing tournament. What the lack of all-rounders in a side also does is that it leaves you with just five bowling options and no Plan B in case a bowler has an off day. So far Indian bowlers have been performing in an unprecedented manner where even four have proved to be enough on a given day. Against Sri Lanka on Thursday, the second innings was completed inside 20 overs with three pacers combining for nine wickets. So far no team has managed to score 300 against India, but when such a day comes, what are the options? Captain Rohit Sharma would be without the sixth bowling option and India’s batting order would be essentially only up to No. 7. There’s a match from the 2019 World Cup that forced India to look for batting options at least till No 8. In the game against England, India had five bowling options, four of them pure bowlers and batters only up to No 7. In that game, the hosts smashed 337/7 and India were caught short in batting firepower as they lost by 31 runs. The Men in Blue have since tried to have a better balance. Shami’s form has put India in a conundrum, however, it’s also true that Thakur can only return when Pandya is also back. In any case, India may not go back to their trusted process but they would be wary of the threat the new combination carries. Hopefully with the bowlers in good form, the bad day for the team doesn’t come before the tournament ends.