"I was really surprised when....": Ponting on Shami's absence in Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Melbourne: Former Australian captain Mohammed Shami questioned the absence of pace veteran Mohammed Shami from the Indian squad during the back end of the recently-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy, saying that having him bowl a few overs as a backup seam option would have made a lot of difference for the visitor, the ICC Cricket site reoirted.

It was a nightmarish Border-Gavaskar Trophy for Indian bowlers as except for pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who took 32 scalps in five matches, none of the bowlers could make a massive impact and were torn apart by Aussie batters, notably Travis Head and Steve Smith, who scored two centuries each in the series. This centuries turned out to be a huge point of difference in making the series scoreline 3-1 in favour of Australia. Mohammed Siraj (20 wickets at an average of above 31), Nitish Kumar Reddy (five wickets at an average of 38.00) and Akash Deep (five wickets at an average of 54.00) fell absolutely flat.

Despite not playing international cricket since the 2023 Cricket World Cup Final, sidelined by an ankle for which he underwent surgery in early 2024, the fast bowler turned out in domestic red-ball cricket before the Test series began, leading to hopes of contribution at some stage in Australia.

He was officially ruled out of contention before the fourth Test in Melbourne with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) medical team citing subsequent knee swelling. Meanwhile, he is representing Bengal in the Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT), the country's top one-day cricket tournament.

Speaking on the latest episode of ICC Review on Shami's absence, Ponting said as quoted by ICC, "I was really surprised when he was not flown out even halfway through the series, two Test matches in."

"India's make-up obviously had Nitish Reddy there. So you had another seam bowling all-rounder anyway."

"So if Shami, even if he was not fully fit, if he had to bowl fewer overs in a day, you had a backup seam bowling option to help him out and I think he could have been the difference."

"When you asked me (in an earlier The ICC Review) at the start about what I thought the result would be, I said 3-1 Australia because Shami was not there. That was the first thing I said. That is how important I felt he was to India."

"If Shami, Bumrah and Siraj were in their starting team, I think things could have been completely different here in Australia," he concluded.

Meanwhile, Shami has featured in two matches for Bengal in VHT, securing two wickets so far. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament before this, he took 11 scalps in nine matches at an average of 25.36.