Shami’s inclusion in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy raises hopes for Border-Gavaskar Trophy return

Mohammed Shami (Pic: AFP)

India pacer Mohammed Shami, who made a splendid return to competitive cricket with Ranji Trophy, was on Monday named in Bengal's squad for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy beginning on Saturday.

As reported by PTI earlier, Shami's inclusion in the Bengal T20 squad is part of a fitness assessment ahead of a potential return to India's team for the latter half of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy five-Test series beginning in Perth on Friday.

Playing his first competitive match after a year, the 34-year-old, who underwent a surgery for Achilles tendon injury on his left leg, claimed a match haul of seven wickets and also excelled with the bat against Madhya Pradesh to help Bengal secure their first win of the season.

BCCI medical team and national selectors want Shami to play a few more competitive games in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy to check if his body is holding up after multiple games even if it's a white ball format tournament, as per sources.

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Talented batsman Sudip Kumar Gharami was named Bengal captain. Bengal will begin their campaign against Punjab in their Group A match in Rajkot.

Hyderabad, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab are the other teams in Group A. The final is slated in Bengaluru on December 15.

Squad

Sudip Kumar Gharami (C), Abishek Porel (wk), Sudip Chatterjee, Shahbaz Ahmed, Karan Lal, Writtick Chatterjee, Ritwick Roy Chowdhury, Shakir Habib Gandhi (wk), Ranjot Singh Khaira, Prayas Ray Barman, Agniv Pan (wk), Pradipta Pramanik, Saksham Chaudhary, Mohammed Shami, Ishan Porel, Mohammed Kaif, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Sayan Ghosh, Kanishk Seth and Soummyadip Mandal.

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