Shami-like but not quite Shami yet

When Akash Deep made his Test debut in Ranchi earlier this year, side-by-side comparisons popped up on the internet, prompting many to assume that the 27-year-old from Bihar had modelled his action after the seasoned 34-year-old from Amroha.

Bengaluru: Akash Deep could well be mistaken for Mohammed Shami. The frame, sparse hair on the scalp, manicured beard, demeanour…. 

Oh, and there’s the bowling action.

When Akash made his Test debut in Ranchi earlier this year, side-by-side comparisons popped up on the internet, prompting many to assume that the 27-year-old from Bihar had modelled his action after the seasoned 34-year-old from Amroha. 

Interestingly, Akash’s action has only gotten more similar to Shami’s. But, Akash insists he is not mimetic, and that he ‘naturally’ happens to have an action similar to Shami’s. He does, however, acknowledge that there are advantages to this coincidence. 

“I have not copied his action, I didn’t even try. I ask him a few things and try to learn a few things from him. Because our actions are similar I can ask him,” he says.

When asked to pull the thread on one such thing he was able to extract from Shami, Akash explains: “… one of the things I learnt is that when you’re bowling from around the wicket to the left-hander, the ball naturally moves towards the shine, but I learnt how to get the ball to come back with the angle because I have seen him do that a lot. 

Delving deeper, he says: “He told me not to focus too much on bringing it in. He said it will automatically come over time and when it does, it will become a wicket-taking ball. Because if it keeps going out and then you are able to bring it back in with the shine, it's tough for batsmen. But he has cautioned me against trying it a lot. But as a bowler, if you're able to do it, then batters will have a tendency to chase balls away as well. You become unpredictable.”

Also, Akash, like Shami, is bent on adding newer, sharper arrows to his quiver. 

“Naturally, I am an in-swing bowler. Three years ago I hurt my shoulder so I was not able to bowl the in-swinger. I figured I had to work out a few other variations to survive... In red-ball cricket, you cannot survive if you don’t know how to swing the ball. I learnt the out-swinger at that point, and as my shoulder recovered, my natural in-swinger returned so I was able to use both the variations,” he reveals. 

All of these learnings - from his own experience and imbibed by leaning into Shami’s - were evident during India A’s Duleep Trophy contest against India B as Akash finished with nine wickets for 116 runs in the game. 

Only a few hours after this contest came to a close, the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced India’s squad for the two-Test series against Bangladesh, and Akash’s name featured on it. 

Shami hasn’t recovered fully from the Achilles surgery he underwent earlier in the year, and since the Indian team, it seems, takes ‘like-for-like replacement’ seriously, it called on Akash.

He might not get a chance to play since the pace battery in the squad also includes Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj but having a Shami-like option can never be a bad thing. Better yet, India can go to someone who, admittedly, is a perpetual ‘work in progress’. 

“The day you’re satisfied with your performance, you won’t improve as a cricketer. You cannot be satisfied. Take my batting for example, I realised I had to work on it because, at my position (No.8 or No.9), any contribution with the bat is useful. If you score 20-30 runs there, you could change the texture of the game,” he says after ending the game with knocks of 11 and 43. 

Besides all of his comforting qualities as a cricketer, Akash remains grounded, and that, more than anything else, makes it easy to think of him as someone with a future, and for the future.