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India started well as New Zealand did not appear to be able to score at all before Daryl Mitchell and Rachin Ravindra put on a big partnership. In fact, the only thing that could stop New Zealand was Mitchell’s slowdown for his hundred and then Mohammad Shami. His spell took the game from near par to massively in favour of India. The openers kept doing that, but New Zealand picked up enough wickets and a comedy run out to put pressure on India for a while before they won the game.
Shami in World Cups (SAK)
I thought Mohammed Shami bowled magnificently. What a magnificent option to have on their bench, because I don’t think he would have played if not for Hardik’s injury. He now has 36 wickets from just 12 World Cup matches. He has the best strike rate for any bowler in the tournament’s history. Now you could argue that he doesn’t play all games, unlike the other bowlers on here. But calling him one of the best strike bowlers in the modern ODIs is just not a stretch.
Today he took an early wicket and created a chance to get Ravindra (in which the other Ravindra dropped a sitter). He was really impressive at the death too, and did not let Mitchell launch towards the end which meant NZ could not set a target above 300.
He can bowl fast and move the ball in either direction. He has also added a lot of smarts to his game as a white ball in recent times.
The question really now is whether not just Shami, but India in total, are the best strike bowling team of all time. We will do an entire video on that tomorrow.
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