Tilling. Sowing. Tilling again. Watering. Fertilizing... The terms may just be agricultural jargons to urban India but for rural India, they are their basis of survival, eternally connected to their livelihood. And for Mohammed Shami, they are the reason behind his 180-degree turn around from not being in ODI scheme of things even till the home series against West Indies last year to fast forwarding as India’s second-best seamer in the lead up to the World Cup. The 'lean mean pace machine' of Indian captain Virat Kohli or the 'Naya Shami' as his childhood coach Badruddin Siddiqui describes is the result of a desi fitness regime.
“The Shami you’re seeing now is a new product. Gym toh sablog karte hai but Shami didn’t do that. He followed a desi fitness training to get back into shape,” Badruddin told Wah Cricket in an exclusive chat.
Around this time last year, Shami weighed 93 kg. He would start panting while returning to the bowling mark and with each delivery, his breaths would grow longer. The month-long turbulence in personal life, legal battles, and more rounds of television news channels than cricket grounds had left his fitness in tatters. The result was only four appearances for Delhi Daredevils in the following IPL. The telling blow, however, came a couple of months later when Shami was declared ‘unfit’ for the Afghanistan Test match. That’s when Shami went back to his village, stayed in Moradabad, some 38 kilometres from his Alinagar house, with his childhood coach and mentor Badri bhai, as he is popularly known in Moradabad and Amroha.
Dumbbells, treadmill, leg-press, butterfly machine and the confined area of a gymnasium always repelled Shami, Badri bhai was well aware of this. His first advice to his ward was to forget about the modern methods and go back to his roots. Together, the mentor-coach duo derived a form of training bereft of any modern equipment.
Instead of a gym, they used the land in front of Shami’s farmhouse in Sahaspur, Alinagar. The 400-meter land was tilled – mechanical agitation of land before sowing - using a tractor. Only this time the tillage was not done for the farming of crops like rye or wheat, it was prepared for Shami’s training. A few sacks of sand were emptied to counter the softness of the soil. The task for Shami was to complete 10 rounds of the tilled field on barefoot. Religiously for 15 days, Shami woke up, ran as fast he could and without a fail completed 10 rounds. On some days he even ended up completing 20.
“It’s not easy to run barefoot on such a surface. It’s like running on a beach and a muddy area at the same time. Sometimes his feet got stuck, sometimes his feet sank on parts which had more sand than soil but he did not let his guard down. Woh bhagta gaya, jaise koi junoon sir pe sawar ho,” recounted Badri bhai. “Shami was a natural fast bowler but he was never fond of physical training. My job was to ensure he did not lose motivation as the training method we were using had nothing to do with the nuances of fast bowling.”
During those 15 days of rigorous barefoot running, Shami’s only source of relaxation was a makeshift swimming pool in his farmhouse. “He would call the kids of my academy to join him in his pool session,” said Badruddin.
Badruddin’s next challenge was to ensure all the physical efforts Shami was putting in did not go waste because of his irregular eating habits. But it was impossible to convince Shami to follow a proper diet chart. The coach again went out of the box. Instead of telling Shami to quit eating stuff he loved, Badri bhai cut down the quantity. “Isse pehle jab bhi training ke baad bhookh lagti thi wo jitne marzi parathe ya rooti kha leta tha lekin is baar I allowed him only 1 or 2 roti at best. There was no proper diet chart or restriction on food, the idea was to make him eat healthy and eat less,” said Badruddin.
The result
Shami cleared the fitness test and was an automatic choice for England tour. He bowled 172.4 overs in 5 Test matches – the most by any Indian bowler on that tour. But both Shami and Badruddin knew there was work to be done.
Such was the effect of training in Amroha that Shami decided to go back to the same routine after returning from England. The same was repeated before and after Australia tour, where he emerged as the second most successful Indian bowler after Jasprit Bumrah with 16 wickets in 4 Tests. The white-ball domain, however, was still unconquered. He was picking wickets alright but consistency wasn’t there, he was still leaking runs.
“It was only a matter of time. Jisne wo training complete kar li usko fitness mein beat karna possible nahi. There was no problem with Shami’s bowling ever. I knew he would be an asset in ODIs too,” added Badruddin.
The deadlock was broken in New Zealand, where Shami picked up 9 wickets in 4 ODIs at an economy rate of 4.75. The manner in which he troubled Colin Munro and Martin Guptill with the new ball and found the blockhole in the latter half of the innings, impressed head coach Ravi Shastri so much that he termed Shami as the biggest takeaway of New Zealand tour.
On Saturday in the first ODI against Australia, Shami took his game to another level by displaying impeccable control in all three of his spells – at the start, in middle and in the death overs.
And when Indian captain Virat Kohli said, “I’ve never seen Shami so lean before, he must’ve lost 5-6 kgs,” at the post-match presentation after India’s six-wicket win in Hyderabad, Badri bhai in his Moradabad house smiled in content for he knew the 'Naya Shami' is just warming for World Cup.