Indian pace ace Mohammed Shami has slammed former Pakistan cricketers for their slanderous—and occasionally absurd comments—about his bowling for the past couple of years. Some very prominent players like ex-Pakistan cricket captain Inzamam ul Haq have suggested that Indian bowlers were getting a lot of assistance from the ball because “a lot of serious work was done on it before”.
Inzi was not the only one to imply that Indians were tampering with the ball. Former Pakistan cricketer Hasan Raza, after India’s game against Sri Lanka in the World Cup 2023 match, had said that “ICC or the BCCI were giving Indian bowlers different and suspicious balls in the second innings.”
Shami has slammed such insinuations in a recent interview.
“Jealousy wala scene hai, aur kuch nahi hai… mujhe nahi lagta yeh koi sense wali baat hai. Apna perform nahi hota toh sab fatichar ho jaata hai. Jab doosra perform karta hai tab aapko mirchi lagti hai (This is pure jealousy. There’s no sense in such comments. When your own team cannot perform, you think the rest of the world is bad. You feel jealous because another team is performing well),” Shami said on Aap Ki Adalat when asked about the various comments made by former Pakistan cricketers about Indian pacers getting swing and reverse swing easily.
Shami was asked about a particular claim which originated from the other side of the border that there was a chip in a ball that Shami has used to get wickets in a match.
“These are the people like the umpires who bring the ball when the ball is selected. People don’t actually know and I think this is a case of jealousy, nothing else. Because when we perform, when we do better, the person in front gets jealous on their own. So, I don’t think there’s any sense in this. These players saying this have played well at a good level, nationally, but if you say this on national television, I think after that, the public shouldn’t listen to them either,” Shami said. “There is no different ball. A box comes, the umpires bring it. After the toss, a box comes for the team that bowls first, they choose, and a ball is also chosen for the team that bowls second. So there is nothing in that. And after choosing the ball, it is given to the umpires. If it’s a Test match, two balls are given. We get the ball on the ground. So we only get to see which shape feels good in our hand from the box or with which ball we feel good. The box of balls comes only for that. Nothing else happens. All this is nonsense. Sometimes they say a device is attached. When they don’t perform, everything becomes bad. But when the other person performs, you get offended. So that shouldn’t happen, you should enjoy it. You should look at cricket like cricket.
Asked why Pakistani players get so offended when he or other Indian pacers bowl well, Shami said: “People have always gotten offended. But you have humanity inside you. If you want to be a good person, you should also enjoy the success of others. That’s the biggest thing.”
Shami also clapped back at former Pakistan pacers by implying that they would get reverse swing back in the day by doing things to the ball.
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“Ours (talent at reverse swing) was a God’s gift, what was yours? You should also see that. At that time, there weren’t so many cameras. But, I mean, we built the skills ourselves, right? We didn’t create it. It’s our God’s gift. At least God gave it to us. We are working hard on it, perfecting it. They should come and see how much we are working. When you get something like this, you have to bowl millions of balls to perfect one ball. And you are just blowing away that hard work in smoke. Just mixing it in the dust. It doesn’t happen like that.”
