Mohammad Shami

"The shadow Jasprit Bumrah casts has often obscured the sparkle of Shami in white-ball cricket. It’s what Shami loves, operating from the shadows, like an invisible force of darkness. But ask batsmen who have duelled him, subjected to his tease and torture, and they would readily testify that he is as difficult a bowler to face as Bumrah. Gifted with the most upright wrist position in contemporary cricket, with malleable wrists and dexterous fingers flicking and snapping like a master guitarist, he can seam the ball into the right-handed batsmen sharply and rapidly. He could make the ball straighten off a length too, and when conditions ally, seam it away too. But his deadliest skill, across formats, is the slippery bounce he extracts from a hard length. One of the finest executioners of the heavy ball, he could be quicker and bouncier than one would expect of a bowler with the frame of a middle-weight boxer, one who is wiry than strapping. A bowler as exceptionally endowed as him need not resort to variations, but he has sharpened his oeuvre with slower balls and deadly yorkers. For a long spell, his white-ball stocks went unsung — for 591 days, he was in ODI wilderness — but came back and reasserted the virtues of his craft. He was considered too inconsistent for this format, yet he has been the fastest to both 100- and 150-wicket milestones from his country. An average of 25.98 and economy rate of 5.60 are golden numbers in this day and age, and the key to beating India lies in dousing Shami and his straight-seamed magic.