Indian Pacer Mohammed Shami Responds to Ball-Tampering Accusations by Inzamam-ul-Haq
During a recent interview on Shubshankar Mishra’s YouTube channel, Mohammed Shami addressed the baseless accusations made by former Pakistan cricketers against the Indian cricket team, particularly regarding ball-tampering.
Shami expressed his frustration with the constant scrutiny from Pakistani players, stating, “Pakistanis were never happy with us and will never be – someone said we are being given a different ball, and someone said there was a chip in the ball.”
He went on to challenge these conspiracy theories by mentioning his willingness to cut open a ball he had bowled with to prove there was no tampering involved. Shami emphasized that swinging or reverse swinging a ball is a skill possessed by bowlers and not a result of tampering.
“If your bowlers do swing and reverse swing, then it is skill; if we do, then we are tampering with the ball and chip on the ball,” Shami added.
Shami also defended his teammate, Arshdeep Singh, who was accused of ball-tampering by Inzamam-ul-Haq during the T20 World Cup. He criticized the former Pakistan cricketer for baseless allegations and suggested that they were made to deflect blame for their team’s losses.
“The team that performs against them gets targeted there… This kind of cartoonish behavior (cartoongiri) is not good; these are just ways to fool the public,” Shami concluded.
Earlier, Indian captain Rohit Sharma had also responded strongly to Inzamam’s allegations, urging him to “use his brain” and understand the conditions in which the matches were being played.
“It’s so hot here, and the pitches are dry. If it won’t reverse swing here, where will it be? We aren’t playing in England or Australia,” Rohit had said.