Indian speedster Mohammed Shami opined on the ball-tampering claims made by former Pakistan cricketer Hasan Raza during the 2023 World Cup. The remark by Raza came after the Shami had been ruling the roost with the ball during the tournament. He alleged that India was given a different set of balls by the ICC and BCCI, leading to them achieving a win as well. While Raza faced backlash from several former cricketers, Shami criticized him as well.
During a conversation with Aajtak. Shami said: “Does this ball have any device? (laughs while looking at the ball). When I heard this, I wondered ‘how can someone ask such a stupid question?’. Even I think about it (that claim) now, I am not able to control my laughter. How can a player know which ball is used? And those talks of a device fitted in the ball and all that…can’t believe it.”
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“I am thinking of making a video on it. But I didn’t do one because it will create chatter. I thought of taking the ball and breaking it and showing it to people whether there is something different inside or not. Okay, even if we had some special device in the ball, what if we press the wrong button? What if press in-swing instead of out-swing? I didn’t expect that someone who played the game at the highest level can speak like this. I don’t such things should be said,” further stated Shami.
However, Mohammed Shami finished as the tournament’s highest wicket-taker with 24 wickets in seven outings at an average of 10.70, including three five-wicket hauls. He also became India’s all-time highest wicket-taker in ODI World Cups with 55 dismissals in only 18 innings as well.
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“When we reached the final, we had one mood in the dressing room: ‘We are in this together’. No one will be blamed. We were planning to give our best. You can call it a bad day, the luck was not our side. From Day 1, we made it clear that if we win, we win together as a team, if we lose, we lose together as a team,” concluded Mohammed Shami.
