'I don't know his personal things but I'm 200 per cent sure he can't do that because I know him that well."
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Mohammed Shami developed as one of India’s premier bowlers across formats and one of the most important players of the Indian Test team during the course of his career. Shami’s upright seam posture, which even colleague Dinesh Karthik believes makes him a “nasty bowler to face,” has been a major cause for his supremacy. Shami’s career, like any other professional athlete’s, has ups and downs, however, for the seasoned pacer, it was more an off-the-field issue that bothered him.
His estranged wife Hasin Jahan had levelled multiple claims, including match-fixing, in 2018, prompting the BCCI’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) to investigate. On Cricbuzz’s ‘Rise of New India’ event, veteran fast bowler Ishant Sharma recalled Shami’s difficult period in his career and how, when the latter emerged from it, it led to a greater friendship between the two. In 2018, Jahan filed a police report, alleging match-fixing, adultery, and domestic violence, which resulted in the BCCI maintaining Shami’s core contract.
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Concerning the match-fixing claims, in which Jahan alleged that the pacer got money from a Pakistani woman, the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) requested the BCCI to conduct an investigation. Shami was eventually found not guilty on all counts. During their inquiry against Shami, the BCCI’s ACU approached all of the Indian team’s players, according to Ishant. He said that he assured the Neeraj Kumar-led squad that he was “100%” certain Shami was not involved in such issues, albeit he did not discuss his personal life.
“I had a word with him and he did the share of the lot on the topic. Whatever had happened, the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) had approached us all, and they had asked us whether Shami could do a match-fixing or not. Just like policemen lodge a complaint…I was asked everything and all was written down. I told them, ‘I don’t know his personal things but I’m 200 per cent sure he can’t do that because I know him that well.” When he heard I said those words, he realised that what I think of him and our bond became stronger,” he said.
Earlier former India bowler Bharat Arun stated that former India head coach Ravi Shastri had a life-changing talk with pacer Shami before the Men in Blue toured England. In an open and honest talk with then-India head coach Virat Kohli, speedster Shami conveyed his wish to retire from cricket for personal reasons. Prior to his dismal fitness test in 2018, star pacer Shami had also been sidelined with an injury. Shami was dropped from the India team and was replaced by uncapped Delhi pacer Navdeep Saini. Head coach Shastri pushed a sad bowler to concentrate on his comeback by spending four weeks at the National Cricket Academy, urging him to transform his grief into power (NCA).
