There is no doubt over my fitness: Shami

M S Dhoni would have been left a worried man when Mohammad Shami, who had gradually improved in his bowling, walked off clutching his left thigh towards close of play. But the paceman came back to bowl the final over of the day to dispel any fitness concerns.  

 
“There is no question on my fitness,” asserted Shami later. “These things happen on the field. Niggles do occur but there is no problem as such. I went out to avoid any injury. I stretched a bit in the change room, came back and bowled the last over. It’s just a strain in left thigh and I am fine to bowl tomorrow morning.”

The morning session of the second day, Shami pointed out, is going to be crucial and felt the bowling unit fit enough to take any work load. “Yes, tomorrow’s morning session is quite important. Our effort will be to finish their innings in the first session and finish it as quickly as possible. That will be our focus,” he explained.

Shami said the Indian bowlers managed to hit good areas more often. “We always plan to bowl as per line and length and we always plan like that,” he stressed. “Sometimes it isn’t the bowlers’ day, so line and length doesn’t come out right. Sometimes you don’t get wickets or give away runs. So the focus today also was on line and length but we did that today,” he reasoned.

Shami agreed it helped him that R Ashwin dried up runs at one end that helped build pressure on the Australian batsmen. “It is very important for any bowling attack to have one end tight,” Shami noted.

“There is no point if you are bowling well from one end and leaking runs at the other. You can’t create pressure like that. So it was good that we had that today. Irrespective of whether it is a fast bowler or a spinner bowling in tandem, it is important to hold one end tight and then we can attack from the other end, alter our lengths, and keep attacking. So Ashwin did that job today, and I was able to attack as well as change my lengths today,” he analysed.