'Petrol Khatam ho chuka tha' - Mohammed Shami jokes after his breathtaking spell against Delhi Capitals in Ahmedabad

Star India seamer Mohammed Shami was breathing fire during Match 44 of IPL 2023 between Gujarat Titans and Delhi Capitals on Tuesday, May 2 at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. After DC captain David Warner won the toss and elected to bat first, Shami took the matter into his hands and annihilated their top order.

The 32-year-old bowled a magnificent spell of 4/11 in four overs and left Delhi reeling at 28/5 inside the powerplay. The speedster bagged the prized scalps of Philip Salt (0), Rilee Rossouw (8), Manish Pandey (1), and Priyam Garg (10) to break the back of DC’s batting. Talking to former India cricketer Murali Karthik during the innings break, the fast bowler joked that he had run out of gas after his breathtaking spell. He also stated that he practises a lot before the season and tries to understand how the pitches behave.

“We practice a lot of before the season and understand how the pitches behave and which lengths to bowl. I'm just following the plans. My job is to attack and take wickets and if we can take those early wickets it will always be such a huge plus for the team. Feel the total is gettable, don't think there is too much swing or seam. (Nahi nahi, petrol khatam ho chuka tha) I have given it my all and bowled four on the trot,” Shami said during the innings break as quoted by HT.

Notably, it was Shami’s best-ever figures of IPL career and the seamer now also holds the record for best-ever bowling figures for GT in their short IPL history. Furthermore, his spell of 4/11 is the second-best bowling figure in IPL 2023 after Mark Wood’s 5/14 vs DC earlier in the tournament.

Gujarat lost the match by five runs despite Shami's heroics

Coming back to the match, courtesy of Shami’s spell, Gujarat managed to restrict DC to a paltry 130/8 in the first innings. Aman Hakim Khan scored a brilliant 51 off 44 balls to bail his team out of trouble.

In reply, for the first time in the season, GT suffered a dramatic collapse as they were 32/4 after 6.4 overs. Captain Hardik Pandya (59* off 53), Abhinav Manohar (26 off 33), and Rahul Tewatia (20 off 7) tried their best to take their team home.

However, they were undone by some pretty tight bowling by DC and eventually lost the match by five runs. Khaleel Ahmed (2/24), Ishant Sharma (2/23), and Kuldeep Yadav (1/15) gave their all on the field to help their side register their third win of the season. Despite his team ending on the losing side, Shami was awarded ‘Player of the Match’ for his magnificent spell.