Adelaide:India pacer Mohammed Shami has been ruled out of the rest of the Australian tour with a fractured arm.
According to a leading sports website report, Shami has suffered a fracture on his right forearm, which was revealed after he underwent scans immediately after the Adelaide Test ended on Saturday.However, the BCCI is yet to make an announcement on the development.
Shami, who batted at No 11, was struck on the right arm, just under the elbow, by a rising Pat Cummins delivery on Saturday during India's second innings. He was immediately tended to by the Indian medical staff.
After being taped on his right forearm, Shami decided to bat on, but then signalled he could not continue and walked back to the dressing room.He didn't return to bowl either in the fourth innings and wasn't spotted when the two teams exchanged handshakes after the premature end to the first Test. He was later seen leaving the Adelaide Oval with his arm in a sling.
At the post-match presentation, India captain Virat Kohli had revealed that Shami had gone to get scans and that he'd been in a "lot of pain" being unable to "even lift his arm". As feared, those scans have revealed a fracture that Shami will not be able to recover from while he's in Australia.
As for Shami's replacement, India are now left with two other options in the squad in the form of Navdeep Saini and Mohammad Siraj, both of whom are yet to make their Test debuts.
Siraj was impressive during both his outings in the warm-up matches and could well be the front-runner to come in for Shami even if Saini has been in the squad since the tour to New Zealand.
The visitors could also potentially rope in one of their three reserve fast bowlers- Kartik Tyagi, T Natarajan and Shardul Thakur.
Incidentally neither of these three pacers were part of the original Test squad. Both Natarajan and Thakur stayed back after the white-ball leg of the Australia tour to join Tyagi as net bowlers.
India will be now under mighty pressure after their poor show in the first Test and will now miss two key players in the form of Shami and captain Kohli, in the Boxing Day Test which begins on December 26 in Melbourne.(UNI)
