Adv. Nobody Chandel

Every evening of that Kolkata Test in 2016, once the day’s play ended, Mohammed Shami did not head for team hotel. He went to a hospital and sat outside an ICU. His daughter Aaira was 14 months old. A high fever and an asthma attack had left her struggling to breathe and doctors had admitted her mid-Test. Shami told no one. A few hours later he was back at ground, tying his laces for warmup. Now he announced his retirement from Test cricket and that is the match I keep going back to. that match was India's 250th Test at home, on a fresh pitch that still held the monsoon damp. Bhuvneshwar Kumar took the first innings 5er and applause. Shami took 6 for 116 in 36.1 overs, 3 in each innings, sort of figures nobody frames. On the last afternoon the old ball began to talk and Shami made it sing. Boult's top edge to Murali Vijay at slip ended it. India won by 178 runs and climbed to No. 1. Kohli heard about the hospjtal afterwards. "I had no clue" he said. Shami's explanation was one sentence long: leaving a game unfinished felt like a sin. I understand that sentence better when I think of Sahaspur, a small town in Amroha,Uttar Pradesh. A boy with pace there had to leave home just to find a coach and a decent net. For him a Test was the job,the thing a whole family bent itself around. Turning up was the one thing nobody could take from him. Now the numbers, because they settle the argument. He finished with 229 Test wickets at strike rate just over 50 and very few fast bowlers reach 200 that close to a wicket every 8 overs. At home he was even more sharper, he was taking a wicket every 42.6 balls, best of any Indian pacer with minimum 75 wickets on pitches that belonged to Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Those were demolishing batters at other end. Shami kept collecting wickets in same hours. he was never the loud one. Kohli said as much, that Shami does not express himself in the open on the field. He let the seam talk: upright wrist, ball landing on same spot, late movement into the pads. Batters rarely heard him. They heard the rattling sound of stumps. Test cricket has had bowlers who were quicker and a few who were prettier to watch. It has not had many who walked from floodlihhts of Eden Gardens to a hospital corridor and back and then bowled in morning as if nothing had happened. A fast bowler is a flame that burns itself for others and Shami kept his lit through the longest night of his life and every season after it. Happy Retirement Shami!