Shami to be rested from Bengal’s Vijay Hazare Trophy opening match against Delhi

New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) Veteran India pacer Mohammad Shami will be rested from Bengal’s Vijay Hazare Trophy opening match, said the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) on Thursday. Bengal is scheduled to begin their Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign against Delhi at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday. 

Bengal are in Group E of the 50-over competition alongside Delhi, Tripura, Baroda, Kerala, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.

After an ankle injury needing surgery kept him out of action for nearly a year, Shami made a successful comeback to professional cricket through Bengal’s fifth-round match in the Ranji Trophy against Madhya Pradesh at Indore, where he took seven wickets in his team’s win. He also led the Bengal bowling attack in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy recently, picking up nine wickets in 11 games at an economy rate of 7.85, with a best of 3-21 against Hyderabad, before they lost to Baroda in the quarter-finals in Bengaluru.

After the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series at the Gabba in Brisbane ended in a rain-hit draw, India skipper Rohit Sharma said Shami's fitness for joining the team on a tour of Australia depends on National Cricket Academy's clearance, whose Sports Science head Nitin Patel has been on the ground to assess Shami’s fitness and let the team management know about his progress.

"About Shami, I think it's high time somebody from NCA talks about him, where he is rehabbing. Those guys are the ones who need to come up and give us some kind of update. I understand he's playing a lot of cricket back home, but there have been some complaints about his knee as well."

"So, look, the last thing you want is the player coming here and then pulling out in the middle of the game. You know what happens when that kind of thing happens. So, there is no way we want to take that chance unless we are like, not 100%, 200% sure, we're not going to take any risk. But like I said in the last press conference, the door is open if those guys at the NCA feel that he is okay to go and recover and play, we'll be happy to have him."