In Australia, Shami will join a seam-bowling attack comprising Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh and Harshal Patel, with Hardik Pandya as the all-round option.
Shami hasn’t played any form of cricket in the last three months. He was named in India’s T20I squad for the home series against Australia and South Africa in September but had to pull out after testing positive for Covid-19. Shami subsequently resumed training after returning a negative test on September 28 and is believed to have cleared the BCCI-mandated cardiovascular tests last week.
Shami hasn’t played T20Is for close to a year now, having last featured in the format during the 2021 World Cup in the UAE. He picked up six wickets from five games at an economy of 8.84 in the tournament.
None of the other reserve players originally named – Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi and Deepak Chahar – are travelling at the moment. Chahar was touted to be Shami’s closest competitor for the vacancy left by Bumrah’s back injury. However, Chahar is currently at the National Cricket Academy after fresh concerns over his back. He was subsequently withdrawn from the South Africa series.
Teams that qualified directly for the World Cup can make changes to the squads without requiring permission from the event’s technical committee until October 15.
India squad for T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul (vice-capt), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami
Reserve players: Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Shardul Thakur.