Right-arm pacer Mohammed Shami was announced as the replacement for the injured Jasprit Bumrah for India’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 squad by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Friday.
“Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur have been named as backups and will travel to Australia shortly,” the BCCI stated in a release.
“Shami has reached Australia and will link up with the squad in Brisbane ahead of the warm-up matches,” the release added.
India squad for ICC T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami.
Bumrah was ruled out of the T20 World Cup after sustaining a back injury during the recent T20I series against Australia. The 28-year-old had made a comeback to international cricket after two months on the sidelines but aggravated his injury and couldn’t recover in time for the marquee event in Australia.
Shami, who has played in 17 T20 Internationals and taken 18 wickets, last featured in a T20I during the most previous edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in the UAE. The last T20 he played was in May, for Gujarat Titans in the IPL 2022 final. He was scheduled to feature in the six T20Is against Australia and South Africa played at home, but missed out after testing positive for Covid-19.
India will play an official warm-up match against Australia on October 17 at Brisbane. Their first match in the group stage of the T20 World Cup will be played against Pakistan on October 23.