Pacer Mohammed Shami drew a lot of attention in the recent Border Gavaskar Trophy first Test against Australia in Nagpur. The 32-year-old pacer not only shone with the ball, taking three wickets but also wowed the crowd with his batting abilities. Shami smashed 37 off 47 balls, including two fours and three sixes, to help the hosts reach 400 runs.
After Ravichandran Ashwin took five wickets, Team India went on to win by an innings and 132 runs after Australia were bundled out for 91 in the second innings. Following the hosts’ memorable victory, the Indian Cricket Board posted a video of an interaction between Shami and Axar Patel, who also scored 84 runs. Shami revealed in the video how he disregarded Axar’s advice to stay calm and play slowly.
Axar said, “I kept telling you to play slowly, and you kept hitting sixes.” To which Shami replied, “My ego was getting hurt (laughs). I try to bat as long as possible and stop the bowler from picking my wicket, and try to take as much responsibility as I can. And we also learn from you guys, about how to play some shots. My mindset was also just to stick around with you for as long as I could and will try to do the same in the future as well.”
Watch Axar Patel’s interaction with Mohammed Shami
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Shami outscored India’s top order of KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Suryakumar Yadav. Aside from that, he completed his 25 Test sixes, surpassing Kohli’s total of 24 sixes.
As for the match, spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja annihilated Australia in just over two hours, handing India a crushing innings-and-132-run victory Saturday, just three days after the first Test began.
In Nagpur, the hosts took a commanding first-innings lead of 223 before dismissing Australia for 91 in an extended second session to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.
