India vs England: Mohammed Shami hits England with wisdom, wickets

On a pitch with bounce and a fair bit of grass, it would have been easy for your plans to go awry, but Mohammed Shami kept pegging away at the channel outside off-stump, keeping England batsmen on their toes most of the time.

With the Dukes ball used in England Tests, Mohammed Shami should have been a runaway success. But he isn’t. He averages over 40, more than in New Zealand (35.6), Australia (32.16), South Africa (24.71) or even India (21.08) where the dry, scuffed up pitches allow early reverse swing. It doesn’t make sense, not with that gift he has of a perfect seam position. The straighter it lands, the more ominous it becomes for batsmen. Add to that the unwavering line outside off-stump and that tease of a length - 20cm fuller on average than in 2018, according to CricViz - and there is no way you can’t edge the ball. England, miraculously, didn’t. Shami though kept pushing his length and fine-tuning his line till he walked away with three wickets.

Mohammed Shami of India celebrates after getting Dan Lawrence of England out. (Getty Images)

“I am just looking for my length and line, nothing too much. Just keep it simple. Maybe did it for one-and-half hours and I got the result,” said Shami after play on Day 1 of the first Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. “You have to stick to the basics. There is no point over thinking. You end up conceding more runs. You just need to understand how the pitch is playing and bowl accordingly.”

Conditions at Trent Bridge were no doubt tempting. On a pitch with bounce and a fair bit of grass, it would have been easy for your plans to go awry. But Shami kept pegging away at the channel outside off-stump, keeping England batsmen on their toes most of the time.

Barring Joe Root who was armed with the right technique - soft hands and a straight bat - to deal with Shami, it boiled down to plain luck for the rest of the England batting. Third ball into his first over, Shami induced a feel from Dom Sibley with a ball hitting short of good length and seaming away. Two balls later, the ball swung away even more but Sibley left it. Last over of his first spell, twice Shami almost squared up Zak Crawley with balls zipping away from good length. It made for a cat-and-mouse game between bat and ball for the first hour, with plenty of sighs in the Indian slip cordon. Shami ended that spell wicketless despite toiling for seven overs.

What makes Shami unrelenting is his ability to recalibrate. With him, there’s always a plan B. For more than a year now he has experimented with the leg trap, shifting his channel from outside off-stump to middle and leg. This means straighter lines and sharper inward movement, sometimes off the reverse swing. It’s a risky line, and a wristy batsman can make you pay if deep fine-leg and square-leg aren’t protected. But it also requires the batsman to keep his eyes peeled on the ball. The slightest drop of the head can upset the balance and the batsman can end up a candidate for LBW.

Now revisit all three dismissals by Shami. Placing KL Rahul at short midwicket, Shami made Dom Sibley play at a slightly pitched up in-dipper. Instead of playing it with a straight bat, Sibley made the cardinal error of closing the face of the bat too soon, and the leading edge ballooned into Rahul’s hands. Dan Lawrence’s dismissal wasn’t as much premeditated as it was about a careless strangle down the leg to a length ball going down leg.

It was Jonny Bairstow though who made Shami work most for his wicket. “There are a lot of things you need to stay aware of,” explained Shami. “You look at the stance of the batsman, his feet and whether his head is dropping or not. If you have played enough cricket you know how much to read every batsman. England batsmen get out more to incoming balls. So my maximum effort was that. The ball was holding up a bit but I kept aiming for the leg stump-middle stump line.”

Bairstow has an off-stump guard and a genuine problem with deliveries on his stumps. Shami knew that. But he still took his time to make Bairstow move more across his stumps. Bairstow was better off against fuller length deliveries, leaning into his shots while leaving the balls shaping away. But every time Shami got one back to him, Bairstow looked far from comfortable. A flick past midwicket, a slow drive past the bowler, Bairstow was just biding his time. When Shami again lined up against Bairstow, the England batsman was coming into his own, unleashing a few drives and looking ominous in a 70-run partnership with Root. This is when Shami went full blast, making Bairstow shuffle across the stumps with three deliveries on leg stump till the fourth moved in quickly and sharply to pin him in his crease.