Ever since Mohammed Shami paid a visit to his Bengal team-mates during a Ranji Trophy fixture against Madhya Pradesh earlier this week, there were speculations that the India fast bowlers could play a game for his state before flying out to Australia for the Test series.

And on Friday, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) decided to add Shami in the squad for its next Ranji Trophy game which is scheduled to be played against Kerala, from November 20. But there is some condition to the same. With the Test series to Australia set to begin from December 6, the BCCI wants to make sure that the players maintain proper workload and are not burnt out.

The board, through an official communication, has laid out a couple of clauses to the CAB before making Shami available. While Bengal has been informed that Shami will not be bowling more than 15 overs in each innings and secondly, every day, CAB’s physio, Parthav Patel, needs to communicate to India team’s physio, Patrick Farhart on Shami.

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CAB secretary, Avishek Dalmiya, confirmed the development. As quoted in Sportstar, he said, “It is true, but we are very happy to have Shami in the squad and his presence will help us immensely.”

While Manoj Tiwary will be leading the group, Shami’s presence will boost the confidence of the side. Earlier, CAB chief Sourav Ganguly had admitted that Shami had expressed his interest to play for Bengal before leaving for Australia.

India will play four Test matches against Australia with the first five-day contest commencing in Adelaide on December 6.

Bengal squad

Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Chatterjee, Ashok Dinda, Mohammad Shami, Anustup Majumdar, Shreevats Goswami, Abhishek Raman, Koushik Ghosh, Purab Joshi, Mukesh Kumar, Ishan Porel, Pradipta Pramanik, Aamir Gani, Vivek Singh, Writtick Chatterjee, Amit Kuila