Getting Mohammed Shami to attain peak fitness is conditioning coach Shankar Basu’s biggest feat

For Mohammed Shami, it is a delayed start to the World Cup 2019. The pacer, who has served Indian cricket brilliantly in both Tests and ODIs over the past several months, is yet to get his first match in the mega tournament underway in England and Wales. Bhuvneshwar Kumar injuring himself in the last match against Pakistan at Old Trafford and is set to miss a few games, Shami will thus walk into the XI as his replacement to kick off his much-awaited campaign.

The 28-year-old seamer didn’t have a great time with fitness even as recently as in 2018. Shami missed the Test against Afghanistan at home as he struggled with the yo-yo test. But he came back strong after a break and kept on delivering relentlessly during two gruelling tours of England and Australia last year. He has had both form and fitness in those two tours and in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah during an ODI series in New Zealand earlier this year, he even opened the team’s bowling.

The transformation of Shami’s physical fitness has been remarkable. And besides his own hard work and determination, credit also goes to India’s conditioning coach Shankar Basu. In fact, Basu considers that getting Shami to the peak of fitness has been his greatest achievement on the job.

“Probably you can say that. And come to think of it, he (Shami) failed a fitness test last year and also had some issues in his personal life. Once he came back, he started training with a vengeance. I had told Shami that there is no point of training hard for 20 days,” Times of India cited reports quoting Basu as saying.

“You have to train consistently. Now training is his lifestyle. Look at how his pace never drops even in the final Test of a five-game series.”

Shami looks to repeat his 2015 WC performance

A fitter Shami certainly doesn’t prefer sitting in the pavilion while the World Cup is on and with his chance all set to come now, the pacer will be eager to make a mark. In the 2015 edition, he was India’s second-best bowler with 17 scalps in seven matches (Umesh Yadav had 18 in eight). Although four years older now, yet Shami’s fitness is even better than that in 2015.

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“He (Shami) is a meat eater but now he has cut down on his junk food. He is probably the first example in this Indian team who has started the concept of intermittent fasting. He doesn’t eat a lot during the first half of the day but eats well during the second half of the day. He has reduced his fat percentage,” Basu said.

India will play Afghanistan in Southampton on Saturday and another win there would push them ahead in the race for the semi-finals.