CWC 2023: Shami is the leading wicket taker despite having missed 4 games

Batsman Virat Kohli’s century in their semi final encounter against New Zealand made him break multiple records. The most talked about among these is becoming the first player in the history of international cricket to score 50 international centuries. He also became the first cricketer to score more than 700 runs in a single edition of a world cup. He is currently only 2 runs behind Ricky Ponting in the list of the highest run getters in world cups scoring which would place him second in the list only behind Sachin Tendulkar. 

But the performance which sealed the deal for India, especially when the going seemed tough was Shami’s brilliant 7-fer that provided crucial breakthroughs in important phases of the game. This has made Shami the highest wicket taker of the tournament. This becomes all the more commendable given the fact that Shami wasn’t in the scheme of things in the first 4 matches of the tournament with captain Rohit Sharma backing all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur.

3 more wickets would place him 4th in the list of highest wicket takers in the history of world cups ahead of legends such as Wasim Akram and Lasith Malinga. His average is 9.13 and his strike rate is 10.91. This is only matched by Rohit Sharma who bowled one over against Netherlands towards the end. The silver lining in Hardik Pandya’s injury has proved to be a shooting star.