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.

One-day memory: (4/35 against Pakistan at Adelaide, World Cup 2015)

Performances against Pakistan by India’s bowlers tend to be hyped more than what they are worth. But this one was undersold, for Shami bowled and howled like the wind. A devilish bouncer nailed the experienced Younis Khan; another devoured Misbah-ul-Haq. He stubbed the last flickering hope of a heist, when he dismissed Shahid Afridi. With 18 wickets, he emerged as India’s most successful bowler in the World Cup, though it would be another two years before he played his next ODI. That then is his ODI career in a nutshell.

One more thing: Shami has two pet dogs Don (German Shepherd) and Jack (Rottweiler) in his farmhouse in Alinagar, Uttar Pradesh. Spending time with them, he says, is the biggest stress-buster."