Mohammed Shami has passed the fitness test and will depart for Australia along with Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi and Mohammed Siraj.
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Shami is one of the four reserve players in the team for the T20 World Cup which will start in a few days’ time.
He was named in the T20I series against South Africa, which would have served as a good preparation ahead of the big event.
However, the 32-year-old tested COVID-19 positive and did not feature in any of the matches in the series. Furthermore.
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Shami had to undergo a fitness test before boarding the flight to Australia, which he passed with flying colours.
Shami’s inclusion will help India to regain confidence in the mega event, due to his experience and track record.
The injury concerns of Jasprit Bumrah already put the Men in Blue in backfoot, with only Bhuvneshwar Kumar as the experienced campaigner.
It will be the first ICC event for Arshdeep Singh and Harshal Patel, and Team India certainly received a boost with Shami joining the squad.
India are scheduled to play two warmup matches against Australia (October 17) and New Zealand (October 19), which can witness Shami returning to action after three months.
He is currently the front-runner to fill the boots of Bumrah.
A curious question was that Deepak Chahar, who bowled brilliantly in the T20I series against South Africa, missed out on the first ODI with Avesh Khan coming in. Well now it has been revealed that it was an injury that made him miss the match.
Deepak Chahar suffered from a twisted ankle and now is expected to miss the remainder of the two ODIs as well in Ranchi and Delhi.
India will kickstart their T20 World Cup campaign against Pakistan on Sunday (October 23), which will give enough time for Shami to understand the surfaces in Australia.