T20 World Cup 2022: Mohammed Shami named as Jasprit Bumrah's replacement

The All-India Senior Selection Committee has named Mohammed Shami as Jasprit Bumrah’s replacement in India’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad. Shami has reached Australia and will link up with the squad in Brisbane ahead of the warm-up matches. Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur have been named as backups and will travel to Australia shortly.

Earlier, Jasprit Bumrah got ruled out of T20 World Cup due to back injury and now it remains to be seen if Shami will be able to pull India out of trouble situations as and when the need comes up.

Notably, Shami hasn’t played a T20 international since the previous edition of T20 World Cup, however, he was quite lethal in IPL 2022 for the Gujarat Titans where he finished as the top-wicket taker for his franchise. The 32-year-old was in line to play the T20Is against Australia and South Africa at home recently, until he tested positive for Covid-19. 

The recovery time took longer for Shami and many in the cricketing fraternity expected Mohammed Siraj to be named as the replacement after the latter’s player of the series performance against South Africa in ODIs. However, the management has decided to back the experience of Shami who has the ability to pick up wickets with the new ball and also can bring his yorkers into play in the death overs. 

India has two warm-up fixtures coming up against Australia and New Zealand and Shami is expected to get back his match fitness through those games. The Rohit Sharma-led side start their campaign in the tournament on October 23 against their arch-rivals Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and it is expected to be a humdinger of a game.  

India squad for ICC T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami.