Kalyani: He may no longer be in the national team’s plans. He may not be in BCCI’s core contract list. He may be 35 years old. But Mohammed Shami remains a formidable force.
Shami showed his power as he took three wickets at stumps to help Bangladesh reduce Jammu and Kashmir to 198 for five on the second day of the Ranji Trophy semi-finals at the Bengal Cricket Academy (BCA) ground.
The match continued at 249/5 with Bengal losing 5 wickets for 79 runs around 45 minutes before the lunch interval before being bowled out for 328 runs. But J&K suffered an early shock as Shami took two wickets before lunch to reduce the visitors to 13 men. The former India international opened the innings with Shubham Khajuria in his second over and Yawer Hassan in the fourth and final over, with both batsmen stranded in front.
However, left-hander Shubham Pundir seemed a bit unlucky as the batsman’s edge looked to have touched the ground and he was dismissed. Veterans Paras Dogra and Abdul Samad then stopped the slide.
Samad scored 50 off just 36 balls. Dogra used all his experience and hit 50 off 95 balls. Finally, Shami smashed his fourth wicket of 143 in his fourth over, his second comeback. Samad shot 82 off 85 balls. Dogra followed his partner and scored off the first ball of the next over. The J&K captain scored 58 runs and in the process completed 10,000 runs in the Ranji Trophy. Earlier, Bangladesh’s Sudip Gharami lost 146 and Auqib Nabi finished with 87, losing 5 pounds.
Brief score: Bengal Ist innings 328 (S Gharami 146, A Easwaran 49, Auqib Nabi 5/87) vs J&K Ist innings 198/5 (Abdul Samad 82, Paras Dogra 58, Shami 3/60).
