Mohammed Shami’s exceptional skill of consistently landing the ball in an upright seam position is unparalleled, according to India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey, who hailed him as a fast bowling “artist.”
“Well, if I tell you that coaches could create a bowler like Shami, then I would be lying. If a bowler can land it on an upright seam every time, then every other bowler in the world will be Shami,” Mhambrey told PTI in an interview.
“It is a skill that Shami has acquired with tremendous hard work and developed himself into the bowler that he is. Bowling ball after ball on the seam and with that perfect wrist position and getting it to move either ways is a rare skill set. A lot of bowlers, even if they land deliveries on the seam, will see the ball straightening up after pitching,” Mhambrey added.
The Indian bowling coach also reserved special praise for Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah in the same vein.
“Even Bumrah with his unusual action gets the ball to move in or away with same action. This is an art and lot of hard work and dedication goes into perfecting the art.”
Mhambrey was taken aback by how Shami and Bumrah have been able to dominate batters all over the world. “I think in Test matches, we had Bumrah, Shami and Ishant (Sharma), who created this kind of magic but frankly speaking, if you ask me now if I would have expected this kind of dominance, I wouldn’t have dreamt of this level of performance.”
“I mean to bowl out Sri Lanka for 50 and then to repeat it against a team like South Africa, score 320 odd and bowl them out for 80. That was surreal. Obviously with an attack like ours, we expected them to do well but to put up such a performance on the biggest stage for such a sustained period was something that was really commendable.”
