Cricket World Cup: In rare appearance for South Africa, Tabraiz Shamsi steals the show | Cricket-world-cup News

It is hard to be in the shoes of Tabraiz Shamsi. In a land where bounce and seam movement is all that you get, being a spinner comes with unique challenges. For Shamsi, who practises what is called the most difficult art in the game– left-arm wr spin—the challenges are multi-fold. First comes length. Unless you get your length right, you are invariably at the mercy of the batsmen. Even more so in Shamsi’s case, who with a low trajectory, is prone to dropping short. Then comes the line. Mostly a white-ball practitioner, he has a small area on the pitch to work around, which extends the margins of error.
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Even if he overcomes all these elements, in South Africa where the quicks call the shots and there is left-arm orthodox spinner Keshav Maharaj round to compliment them, opportunities arrive at a premium. With his batting largely ineffectual, it is invariably Maharaj that South Africa turns to.
But Shamsi has more variations up his sleeves and can be more threatening in the middle-overs, as he is primarily an attacking bowler, like most of the wr-spin tribe. He demonstrated the virtues against Pakan at Chepauk on Friday, where he returned with figures of 10-0-60-4, against a supposedly proficient group of spinners.
Gulf of class
The paradox, though, was there was nothing magical about Shamsi’s spell. Despite practising the same art as Kuldeep Yadav, there is a gulf of class between them. If Kuldeep is the lead guitar, Shamsi is the bass in a band. He is the one who connects their pacers and Maharaj. With Aiden Markram too around to bowl off-spin, Shamsi’s role in the South Africa squad is well defined, where he would get a game only in spin-friendly conditions. After getting a game against Australia in Lucknow, where he picked up 2/38 in 7.5 overs a fortnight back, this was only his second outing this World Cup. For all you know, South Africa will go back to benching him in Pune, where they face New Zealand next Wednesday.
Hero, bench-warmer
This in a nutshell explains Shamsi’s career–hero one day, axed the next day. It is the reason he has featured in only 48 games, though he made his debut in 2016, and despite managing a decent average of 34 and an impressive economy rate of 5.48. Often, it is the conditions and the match-ups that dictate his inclusion. That Shamsi would feature in the game at Chepauk was a given from the moment skipper Temba Bavuma revealed he was tempted to play two spinners, just having a cursory look at the surface on Thursday. However, this wasn’t a dry deck that spinners could exploit.
That Maharaj and Markram went wicketless – the first time in this World Cup that any of their bowlers have gone wicketless in their quota of overs – was a clear indication. But Bavuma was tempted the hardness of the surface. Shamsi relishes bounce. Sans any lateral movement, pitching it short was also the calling card for South Africa quicks tooMost Read
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Thanks to his low trajectory and ability to land the deliveries in the seam, Shamsi can surprise batsmen with the bounce he purchases. At Chepauk, it was sponger than conventional bounce. It undid Babar Azam, who looked fluent in his innings of 50, before he went for a sweep, only for the extra bounce to take the faint edge that Quinton de Kock pouched and reviewed. Shamsi’s template was simple—attack the stumps and let the bounce do the rest, apart from slipping in the variation.
Earlier, he tested Iftikhar, who has a hory of struggling against spinners, with his variations, until he ran out of patience. As the ‘Chacha’ stepped out with the sole intention to hit the sphere out of his sight, Shamsi slipped in the googly that took the leading edge. The wicket of Babar in the next over meant that inside 30 overs, South Africa had half of Pakan side down.
Shamsi wasn’t finished yet. As Saud Shakeel was threatening to break the shackles and their pacers getting punished, Bavuma turned to Shamsi. The left-hander, who had been feasting on width, suddenly froze. Shamsi’s arrival made him a bit jittery for the first time in the afternoon. Having been a bit slow until then, he slipped in a faster one that took Shakeel’s edge, which de Kock pocketed For his fourth wicket, with Shaheen Shah Afridi on strike, he tossed one up, drew the batsman forward, and found the edge that Maharaj consumed at slip. Shamsi, looked up, folded his hands and thanked, wondering where he will get his next opportunity. That’s the life of Shamsi in a nutshell.