How badly is India missing Mohammed Shami?

The ODIs are done, India has been beaten 4-1, thanks to heroics from Rohit Sharma and Manish Pandey, else the scoreline would’ve been an embarrassing 5-0. Indian batsmen, especially the top 3 had been in rich vein of form and they made sure India scored 295+ in each and every game, the Indian bottom three though, made sure that Australian batsmen score as freely as their Indian counterparts, sometimes even more freely leaking runs and failing to add pressure during key moments of the series.

Australia chased 310 and 309 with ease in the first 2 ODIs barring that George Bailey caught behind effort in the 1^st ODI, which wasn’t given out by the umpire. In the 3^rd ODI, some inspired bowling by Ravindra Jadeja and a great stumping by MS Dhoni behind the stumps gave India a sniff at victory. However some pedestrian bowling from Sran and Yadav, blew the lid off of any pressure India built and resulted in yet another loss.

In the South Africa series too, India struggled to contain AB de Villiers and Co. during the death overs and in the final ODI at the Wankhede Stadium, the South African batsmen handed India their worst bowling performance ever in an ODI, plundering a massive 438/4 in their 50 overs.

Instances like these make you question, Is this the same Indian bowling attack that took 77 out of 80 wickets in the World Cup last year?

The answer to that question is both Yes and No. Yes because Ashwin, Jadeja, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav all were part India’s bowling attack during the World Cup. And “No” because Mohammed Shami is missing from that World Cup team due to injury.

Ever since Shami made his debut, he has been quite a revelation. He impressed one and all with his frugal spell of 9-4-23-1. The ability to swing the ball at 140 clicks, Shami was India’s heir apparent to Zaheer Khan for many. A decent show in the ODI series against Australia earned him a Test call-up in Sachin Tendulkar’s final Test series versus the West Indies taking nine wickets on debut.

Throughout 2013-2014 when India toured South Africa, New Zealand and England, he was India’s go to bowler whenever India needed a wicket. In 2014 he picked 38 wickets in 16 games at an astounding average of 22.94 and followed it up with a wonderful World Cup where in 7 games he picked 17 wickets at an average of 17.29 and giving only 4.81 runs per over. India had found its next bowling star, at least in ODIs. In 47 ODIs, Shami has picked up 87 wickets at 24.89 and might have been on the course to become the fastest to 100 ODI wickets, eclipsing Saqlain Mushtaq who has done it in 53 games.

The injury to Shami has rendered toothless and it is quite visible that Indian bowling lacked a leader. Ishant Sharma who has been India’s best Test fast bowler for a few years made a comeback to the ODI side after almost a year and didn’t do too badly. However, wickets at the top and at the death, something that Shami did quite well, reducing the workload of other bowlers.

The numbers of when Shami has played:

While the numbers post World Cup as Shami hasn’t played any International cricket since the semi-final loss to Australia due to various injuries:

There is a stark difference in the win/loss ratio and the bowling averages in both these numbers. The average runs/wicket has gone up from 31.24 to 38.73 and concurrently, the RPO too has gone up by 0.62 resulting in those 30-35 extra runs that India fall short of according to MS Dhoni.

This series has really been an eye-opener and makes one realize the fact that how badly Team India is missing Shami. Had he not been injured on the eve of the 1^st ODI, with the stellar show by the batsmen, the story of this series might have been completely different.

A sport though shouldn’t be judged on the basis of “haves and have nots” and hence one can only hope for a speedy recovery for Mohammed Shami and that his addition can get India back to winning ways in ODIs.