‘Watching him bowl reminded me of Pollock, Anderson’ – Daryll Cullinan heaps praises on Mohammed Shami for Centurion fifer

Former South Africa cricketer Daryll Cullinan said that Mohammed Shami’s spell of bowling on Tuesday in the Centurion Test was reminiscent of Shaun Pollock and James Anderson. In the third day’s play of the opening game at the SuperSport Park, Shami picked up a five-wicket haul and helped India garner a massive first innings lead of 130 runs.

Shami also became the fifth Indian pacer after Kapil Dev, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath to reach the 200-wicket mark in the purest format. The visitors bowled the Proteas out for 197 and took the upper hand in the Test despite the second day being washed off.

Cullinan was of the opinion that taking care of the seam position while releasing the ball worked wonders for Shami. The veteran also lauded Shami for hitting the corridor of uncertainty and posing frequent questions to the opposition batters.

You can see there’s a thought process, says Daryl Cullinan

“His seam position is perfectly up there. Just watching him bowl today reminded me of the likes of (Shaun) Pollock, (James) Anderson. They don’t seem to waste a ball. If you’re on strike, there’s constantly that subtle variation and good seam positions. It is not as if you anticipate the line and length,” Cullinan was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo.

“It’s that control which may vary, sort of a foot wide in the crease. It may be a foot fuller or shorter. He finds that in between lengths where you never know whether you should be forward or back. He’s constantly asking you questions. You can see there’s a thought process behind everything that he is doing,” he stated.

Apart from Shami, the other pacers, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul also played their parts. In fact, it was Bumrah started the carnage, getting rid of opposition skipper Deal Elgar in the very first over of the South African innings.

Cullinan praised the Indian seamers to putting in the hard yards and reaping the rewards at the highest level. “Indian pace bowling is a formidable one because each and every member has worked hard and achieved it all with their sheer hard work,” Cullinan added.