East Zone captain Ishan Kishan has backed the veteran pacer Mohammed Shami to make his comeback to the Indian side. Notably, his comments came in the pre-match press conference ahead of the Duleep Trophy final against South Zone in Chennai.
Interestingly, Shami is currently playing his 100th first-class game in the Duleep Trophy final. Ahead of the game, he was felicitated by CAB’s treasurer, Sanjay Das, and the rest of the East Zone teammates.
“I feel age is just a number. If he is working hard, it doesn’t matter; he has been doing so well. Having him in our team gives us a bit more confidence when you have such bowlers in your team who can get you wickets, and especially looking at Shami bhai this season, his intensity, his energy have been very different,” Ishan Kishan said.
Shami’s last international game for Team India was an ODI match against New Zealand on March 9, 2025. The game was part of the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy campaign, which India ultimately went on to win the title.
“It has been three years since that [2023] World Cup [when he was in excellent form]; it is hard when you are not regularly playing for the Indian team, and to again have that same kind of motivation for your domestic games, it is tough. But I feel I see that hunger in him because who better than me can judge about hunger right now?” Kishan added.
“I think he has that hunger and that motivation right now. He wants to do that comeback; he wants to be part of the Indian squad again, which you can see in him, when he is trying to help me also when I’m leading the side… he is trying to come to me, give me options of what you can do right now,” he concluded.
East Zone squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Kumar Kushagra, Sudip Kumar Gharami, Shikhar Mohan, Ishan Kishan (c) (wk), Md Kounain Quraishi, Anukul Roy, Mohammed Shami, Abhijit K Sarkar, Mukesh Kumar, Virat Singh, Subhranshu Senapati, Shahbaz Ahmed, Denish Das, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal
