It's not often that an Indian fast bowler takes a nine-wicket haul on Test debut on Indian soil. Mohammed Shami's spell on the rather docile Eden Gardens pitch against the West Indies last November raised a billion hopes. He got the ball to reverse-swing both ways, he was accurate and most importantly, he bowled fast. He was consistently touching early 140 kmph mark with accuracy. The toe crushers were back in vogue and after a very long time, an Indian bowler was beating international batsmen for pace. It felt that Indian cricket had unearthed a rare commodity.


Mohammed Shami 

Upright seam
I was particularly impressed with his approach to the crease, close to the stumps release, high-arm action, perfect wrist position that enabled bolt upright seam presentation and also the areas in which he bowled. His pitch-maps for the first few games were quite identical as far as lines were concerned — always around the off-stump. Once you bowl from close to the stumps with a high-arm action, you don't create angles and if you can follow it up with consistent off-stump line, the job of a batsman becomes reasonably difficult.