'The plane started going down' - Tabraiz Shamsi recalls a scary experience on flight during India series

Cricketers going live on Instagram has become a routine thing nowadays thanks to the lockdown in major part of the countries due to Coronavirus pandemic. With no international cricket being played, most of the cricketers are staying at home and have made it a point to interact with the fans to stay in touch with them. Even the media houses are taking the interviews through social media itself.

It was Tabraiz Shamsi who went live on Instagram with CricTracker on Friday as he revealed some of the interesting insights of his playing career and the personal life as well. He comes across as a happy-go-lucky person and loves to enjoy his time on the field. His unique ways of celebration are always the talk of the town.

During the chat, the chinaman bowler shared a scary experience while in flight with his South Africa teammates. The team was travelling from Cape Town to Johannesburg when serious turbulence struck the aeroplane and suddenly it started going down due to the heavy wind.

Tabraiz Shamsi stated that he always used to joke around when there was turbulence but this experience changed him a lot. He also termed it as the worst flight till date and also said that everyone clapped after the flight landed safely as all were scared.

“I used to be in the plane when there’s turbulence and other people are nervous, I used to laugh at them joking around. And, there was series against India in South Africa. I think it was last year, one-day series, we were flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg, we had serious turbulence, our plane got sideways because of heavy wind and the plane started going down.

“Everyone in the plane was quiet, light pieces fixed on the top were falling off, it was quite rough. Since then, I have actually been scared to fly, like my hands start sweating, that journey changed me quite a lot, that’s been the worst flight till date. Everyone was quiet, nobody said a word. When we landed, everybody started clapping,” he said.

Shamsi’s response to criticism over his celebrations

During the interaction, Tabraiz Shamsi also cleared that his celebrations are his way of making memories and his focus is always on the game. He also revealed that the shoe-phone celebration came up from the umpires itself as they use the walkie talkie to interact with the third umpire.

“Lot of people think I am not focussing on my game but only on my celebrations. But, it is just my way of making memories. Shoe-Phone celebration came from umpires as they go upstairs to third umpire when they were in doubt,” the 30-year-old further added.