New Delhi:
Mohammed Shami started his tour of New Zealand on a grand note as he dismissed both openers to give Virat Kohli’s Indian cricket team a great start in Napier against New Zealand on Wednesday. The right-arm pacer started brilliantly as he appealed for an LBW against Martin Guptill who offered no shot but the umpire did not give it out. However, it did not matter as Shami accounted for Guptill with a full ball that nipped back in off the deck and the batsman dragged it back onto the stumps. The wicket was Shami’s 100th in ODIs and he joined a special list of bowlers. Things got better for the Bengal pacer as he switched to round the wicket and breached the defences of Colin Munro who missed a full ball to be bowled through the gate.
Shami became the 13th Indian bowler to go past 100 wickets in ODIs. Javagal Srinath heads the list for Indian pacers with 315 wickets in 229 games followed by Ajit Agarkar’s tally of 288. Zaheer Khan leads the list for left-arm pacers with 269 while Kapil Dev had set the benchmark for Indian pacers with 253 wickets from 225 games. Venkatesh Prasad, Irfan Pathan, Manoj Prabhakar, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and Sourav Ganguly are the others to have taken 100 or more wickets in ODIs.
However, Shami achieved the feat in just his 56th match and it made him the fastest Indian to reach 100 wickets, breaking the tally of 59 set by Irfan Pathan. Pathan had achieved the feat against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in 2006. Rashid Khan, the legspinning sensation of Afghanistan, holds the record for the fastest to 100 wickets when he achieved it in his 44th game during the ICC World Cup qualifier game against West Indies in Harare.
Shami’s crowning moment in ODIs remains his haul of 17 wickets during the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. His best haul of 4/35 came against Pakistan in Adelaide and it ensured India’s winning streak against their arch-rivals in the 50-over World Cup continued. Shami’s exploits in New Zealand will be vital for a side who are without Jasprit Bumrah, who has been rested.
