Rajkot is probably the last venue a fast bowler would want to make his comeback at. Before today, the average first-innings total in T20Is here was 186. In his pitch report for the third India-England T20I, Murali Kartik called the playing surface "as bald as my head", while Nick Knight labelled it a "#belter". But Mohammed Shami would not have minded any of that, especially after being out of international cricket for 14 months.
Shami's last outing for India was in November 2023: the ODI World Cup final against Australia in Ahmedabad. He was nursing his ankle throughout the tournament and underwent surgery in February 2024.
His previous T20I was way back in 2022: the World Cup semi-final against England in Adelaide. Since then, India's approach to T20 cricket has shifted tectonically. Luckily, that shift has to do with batting, not bowling. So Shami did not have to change anything.
After he was named in the squad for the England T20Is - by now the focus of the Indian cricketing circle had moved from his ankle to his knees - many expected him to play right away. He bowled in the nets ahead of the first two T20Is with knee support, but did not play in either. Was he still not 100% fit, or did team composition play a role? We do not know the answer yet. But on Tuesday, India rested Arshdeep Singh and gave Shami a go.
After Suryakumar Yadav opted to bowl, Shami was into the action straightaway. With his very first delivery, he showed what India had been missing. It was a good-length ball, the seam angling towards deep third. Phil Salt threw his hands at it but was beaten as the ball swung away.
Whenever a fast bowler returns from an injury, the eyes automatically shift towards the speed gun. It read a satisfactory 134.6kph. That the wicketkeeper collected it on the bounce had to do with the pitch.
That was a cue for Shami to take the slip out. On the next ball, Salt found a boundary down the ground, even though he barely middled the punch.
Shami then decided to attack the stumps and bowled an inswinger; Salt worked it towards short midwicket. Speed? 134.1kph. Hovering around that mark, Shami conceded only six in his first over.
He started his second over with his trademark dead-straight seam. Jos Buttler had a waft at it, but the ball seamed away. It looked like there might have been a faint edge. It would not have mattered, though, as Sanju Samson fumbled it behind the stumps.
For left-hand batter Ben Duckett, Shami went around the wicket. The batter used the angle and scooped him over the keeper's head for a six. After two overs, Shami's figures read 2-0-15-0.
By the time Shami returned for his third over, the 19th of the innings, Varun Chakravarthy's five-for had England reeling on 151 for 9. Shami went for hard lengths and slower ones but could not prevent Adil Rashid and Mark Wood from taking ten (plus a bye) from the over. The only time he tried a yorker, it ended up as a beamer.
Shami finished with none for 25 from his three overs. It was not a dream comeback but it was not shabby either. Given there were no signs of discomfort, both Shami and the team management would be pleased with it.
Because in the last few months, whenever Shami tried to make a comeback, he had a setback. He was expected to feature in the home Test series against Bangladesh last year, but that did not happen. The same was the case for the New Zealand Tests.
A few months later, he appeared for Bengal against Madhya Pradesh in a Ranji Trophy match and bowled 43 overs across two innings. Following that, he played in all nine games at the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, taking 11 wickets with an economy rate of 7.85.
Just when it started looking like he could be part of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, the knee issue came up. As he increased his workload to be ready for Test cricket, his left knee started swelling, and ruled him out of the Australia tour.
Therefore, even though he bowled just three overs tonight and failed to pick up a wicket, India would consider Shami's return a big positive, especially with the Champions Trophy on the horizon and then the Test series in England later in the year.