- May 2, 2025
Ahmedabad has a strange knack of bringing out the best in Mohammad Shami. In IPL 2022 and 2023, at Ahmedabad, he revelled in bowling – he could nip it around as the lights came on, take early wickets, and was swinging it with the new ball. Getting back to the present day in IPL 2025, it feels like we have a different bowler in a completely different season. Shami has looked out of sorts, the wickets haven’t flowed, and his pace has dropped off. But with a couple of matches coming up at his happy hunting ground, fans can be forgiven for asking – can Ahmedabad get the Shami we know and love back?
The Powerplay Puzzle
In T20s (specifically the IPL), bowlers can struggle to make their mark during the powerplay phase. Shami has been a powerplay king for as long as we can remember. Looking at who he has had to bowl to (opening batters Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill, and Jos Buttler (all of whom are very fluent starters), who have been able to occupy their wickets until at least the 15th over, certainly does not help with this).
In 2025, Shami’s game plan to hit the hard lengths, swing it early, and take early breakthroughs isn’t working at all. To compound that, when he doesn’t get wickets early enough, it’s only going to get worse when he falls behind the eight ball and is forced to bowl at the death. His economy has been impacted, and he isn’t getting the benefits of either reverse swing, when he bowls against the head, or the scary Yorkers he’s renowned for. It has been a tough position for Shami, and it has exposed his liabilities this year.
Not Rusty—Just a Victim of Flat Tracks and Timing?
One compelling narrative is that Shami’s woes come from not playing a season in 2024. That feels a little too simplistic. This isn’t a developing player learning the ropes along the way – Shami is a veteran. This issue feels more significant than the absence of a key season – it feels more like an issue of the environment and timing today.
Not unlike the evening pitches in Ahmedabad, who have some juice, it should be noted that there are plenty of conditions where seamers have been severely underwhelming – dry, flat, and designed to keep seamers at bay. So Shami’s more full-lengths that were successful either in red-ball cricket or in IPL powerplays, are now just being walloped everywhere. He’s not alone; several test-length type of pacers, for example, Mitchell Starc, have also been laid waste. In addition, the franchises are continuing to keep hammering lengths with the hope that their experience and quality will turn that innings into a bigger one.
A Shift in T20 Bowling—And Where Shami Fits In
Things are different in the IPL now. It is no longer about surviving with a decent economy but simply a matter of impactful performance, adaptability, and finishing. Reverse swing, slower bouncers, and Yorkers are now key elements. That is why Shami is under the hammer. He is not your conventional death bowler, and he has not looked to reinvent that part of his game this season.
While someone like Starc has successfully found moments of redemption mid-game, thanks to reverse swing and one or two high-impact spells, Shami has not had that moment. He hasn’t been hitting the high speeds as effectively, his accuracy has been slightly off, and it is evident. If he can recalibrate even slightly, leverage home ground, and gain those early wickets again, the discussion around him could shift dramatically.
Will Shami roar back to life and show why he was once the strike bowler for every team to be concerned with in T20 formats, or will 2025 be the time the sport officially passes to a newer breed of T20 specialists? Regardless, it’s a story worth following.
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