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Cricket Players'Ask any top batsman. No one would want to face him': Gambhir's massive praise for 31-year-old 'threatening' India pacer
Impressed with his wonderful spell, former India opener Gautam Gambhir lavished high praise for the 31-year-old pacer, calling him the most threatening bowler of the series.
Indian pacers enjoyed a fine outing on Day 2 of the second Test against South Africa in Cape Town. The Proteas were bowled out for 210, with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur combining to pick all 10 wickets. While Bumrah led the attack and emerged as the star of the day, registering a seventh five-wicket-haul in Tests, Umesh and Shami bagged a wicket each, and Thakur picking up one.
However, while it was Bumrah who broke the back of the South African attack, one particular spell bowled by Shami was what turned the game on its head. In one over, Shami dismissed Temba Bavuma to break a promising partnership and followed it with the wicket of Kyle Verreynne for a duck. Suddenly, from 112/3, South Africa slumped to 159 for 6, to eventually bundle out for 13 runs short of India’s first-innings total. Impressed with Shami’s wonderful spell, former India opener Gautam Gambhir lavished high praise for the 31-year-old pacer, calling him the most threatening bowler of the series.
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“More than the fear, he was threatening throughout the day, in this innings, and probably throughout the series. The kind of lengths which he bowled, kept testing the batter. Ask any top batsman. No one would want to face him. He bowls so close to the stumps that he is always in or around off-stump. And from there on, he gets the movement and from there on he gets the edges,” Gambhir said on the Byju’s Cricket Live Show on Star Sports.
Gambhir used a couple of wonderful adjectives for Shami and hailed him as one of the best Test bowlers presently in the world. “I think Mohammed Shami or Jasprit Bumrah will keep challenging any batter. More me, Mohammed Shami is relentless and he’s very threatening. He is probably one of the best bowlers going around in red-ball cricket,” Gambhir added.
