THE STORY OF Mohammed Shami’s rise as a cricketer is also the story of damaged charpoys in monsoons.
As a boy, Shami used to practise during rains on a specially constructed cement pitch on his father’s farm in Uttar Pradesh’s Sahaspur Alinagar village. He would place the charpoys behind stumps to prevent the ball from going into the field and damaging crops. “His mother often complained that he was damaging the charpoys,” said Badruddin Siddiqui, Shami’s first coach.
Shami owes his career to his father, a fast bowler-turned farmer who first recognised that his son had it in him to make it big. And Shami has, indeed, made it big. He finished as India’s leading wicket-taker in this year’s ICC World Cup―23 wickets from six matches at a stunning 9.13 runs apiece. He also became the fastest bowler to take 50 World Cup wickets.
The outstanding turn has the UP government planning a stadium with an open gym and race tracks at Sahaspur Alinagar. Now, this is a far cry from the situation in 2021, when Shami had come in for vicious online abuse after India lost a T20 World Cup match against Pakistan. The abuse was so prolonged that cricketer Virat Kohli was moved to defend him, saying “attacking someone over their religion is the most pathetic thing a human being can do”.
At Sahaspur Alinagar, Shami now has a 60-acre farmhouse with a sprawling mango orchard and multiple pitches surrounded by nets, where he occasionally hosts his teammates and often trains aspiring pacers of the village.
By all accounts, the charpoys there are safe.
