Just days after reaching Australia as Jasprit Bumrah‘s replacement for the T20 World Cup 2022, Mohammed Shami produced a breathtaking display of bowling in the warm-up match against Australia on Monday. The veteran pacer only got to bowl one over in the match, that too being the final over, but what he did in those 6 balls took everyone’s breath away. Even India captain Rohit Sharma was bowled over by Shami’s performance in the match despite the tricky situation in which he was asked to bowl.

In the practice game, Rohit surprisingly kept Shami away from the bowling attack for the major part of the match. However, the Hitman spun a big surprise as he handed Shami the ball in the 20th over.

The veteran pacer hadn’t bowled a single ball in Team India’s two practice matches against Western Australia before. But, was given the task of defending 10 runs in the last over against the mighty Australians.

Shami gave 4 runs in the first couple of balls before dismissing Pat Cummins, courtesy of Virat Kohli‘s one-handed blinder. Ashton Agar was then run-out as Australia lost 2 wickets in 2 balls.

Shami then struck on the following two balls as well, picking the wickets of Josh Inglis and Kane Richardson. As a result, Australia were bowled out for 180 runs as India won the match by 6 runs.

Rohit, speaking after the match, Rohit explained why he only gave one over to Shami, that too the final over.

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“He (Shami) is coming back after a long time, so we wanted to give him an over. Wanted to give him a challenge and let him bowl the final over, and you saw what he did,” he said.

In the absence of Bumrah, Shami will have a big responsibility on his shoulders of spearheading India’s pace attack. Considering the way he bowled against Australia in the warm-up game, the confidence of the team management in him would’ve certainly witnessed a boost.