Three-hundred-and-sixty days after he last played competitive cricket at last year's World Cup final in Ahmedabad, Mohammed Shami took the field for an official game on Wednesday, at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.
On Thursday, the second day of the ongoing fifth round of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy, Shami piqued significant interest, after going wicketless across ten overs on the opening day. Was he fully fit? Was his ankle troubling him? Was he bowling within himself? Was he able to bowl with full intensity?
He may have cleared some of those doubts after returning figures of 4 for 54 to help Bengal take a sizeable 61-run lead against Madhya Pradesh that they stretched to 231 with five wickets still remaining by stumps. With the match not televised or streamed, you couldn't have said if Shami was bowling with the intensity he's known to unless you were at the venue. But those within the Bengal camp couldn't be happier.
ESPNcricinfo understands Bengal were advised to tread caution in handling Shami's workload and not give him long spells. And every move of his over the last two days was keenly watched by Nitin Patel, head of the Centre of Excellence's medical panel. Patel and his team have been asked to send a report to the national selectors and the team management after the match.
Anustup Majumdar, the Bengal captain, revealed how Shami had been "desperate to return" after a long injury layoff. On Wednesday, when Shami asked him for the ball with a partnership brewing between Rajat Patidar and Subranshu Senapati, Majumdar couldn't turn his back.
Having bowled a first spell that read 4-0-16-0, Shami was brought back to have a crack late in the day. He bowled until close of play in a spell that read 6-1-18-0. It made Majumdar believe Shami wasn't bowling like someone coming back from a year-long injury layoff.
"It seemed like a big partnership was happening, but Shami asked me for the ball and said he wanted to bowl a new spell from the following over," Majumdar told ESPNcricinfo. "He has proven how desperate he was to return to the field. It didn't seem to me that he was returning from an injury."
A short snippet of Shami's spell released by the BCCI showed him bowling off his usual run-up, hooping the ball around and troubling both the inside and outside edges. Three of his four wickets were bowled.
Shubham Sharma, the captain, chopped on, while Saransh Jain was squared up and bowled by away late movement. Kumar Kartikeya was out nicking behind to an away-swinger, while Kulwant Khejroliya, the No. 11, was bowled playing down the wrong line. In all, MP lose 9 for 61 after cruising at 106 for 1.
"Someone has come back after one year and has bowled 19 overs and taken so many wickets... what's there to say," Bengal coach Laxmi Ratan Shukla said. "He came into the match without doing any match simulation. Can you imagine? But obviously if he plays more, he will get better."
"He bowled one six-over spell and one five-over spell. Players who bowl in the IPL don't even know how to bowl more than four overs. He bowled the sort of spells fast bowlers are expected to. I have never seen a fast bowler come back so strongly after one year away. What he did today is like a fairy-tale."
With the Ranji Trophy giving way to the white-ball leg of India's domestic season over the next couple of months, Shami won't have any more competitive red-ball fixtures to prove his match readiness. Only time will tell if Shami will be on the plane to Australia to feature in a three-day warm-up fixture against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra between the first and second Test.