Veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin heaped reward on pacer Mukesh Kumar, calling him ‘Junior Shami’. While talking on his official YouTube channel, Ashwin mentioned that when he first met Mohammed Siraj, he thought the 29-year-old would change into the junior of Mohammed Shami. However, Ashwin’s thoughts modified after he was Mukesh Kumar and now he felt that the 30-year-old might be the youthful model of essentially the most takers within the ODI World Cup 2023.

Ashwin added that Mukesh has the same construct, top, and wrist place to the 33-year-old.

Ashwin additional hails Mukesh and says that he has that nice whip of the wrist and terrific backspin on the ball.

“I initially thought Mohammad Siraj would become the junior Shami, but I now feel it could be Mukesh Kumar. Shami is called ‘Lala’ and as a tribute to the actor Mohanlal who is called Lalettan, I call Shami Lalettan. Mukesh has a similar build, similar height, and outstanding wrist position – he has that great whip of the wrist and terrific backspin on the ball. He has a very nice straight and nice alignment,” Ashwin mentioned.

The primary Test bowler additionally recalled concerning the time when Waqar Younis modified Mukesh’s profession simply by seeing his two deliveries.

“Imagine, you are going to bowl in front of Waqar Younis, and you were at the toilet. They had called out his name but he wasn’t there! He returned, waited for 30 minutes and told them that his name wasn’t called out. It was then that Waqar Younis, who was about to leave, told him to bowl a couple of balls. Those two deliveries changed his life and he is now bowling for India,” Ashwin added.

Mukesh made his worldwide debut for India on July 20, 2023, following which he has appeared in 10 matches for India and has bagged 9 wickets.

The 30-year-old has been included within the five-match T20I sequence in opposition to Australia. In the primary recreation of the sequence, Mukesh didn’t take any wickets however gave solely 29 runs.