Kapil Dev vs Mohammed Shami: Comparing their Test bowling records after 64 matches

Seamer Mohammed Shami recently made headlines after making a comeback into the Indian national team post a long injury hiatus for the T20I series against England. The series, to be played from January 22 to February 2, will feature five T20Is, and will be followed up with three ODIs from February 6.

This will be Shami's first outing in international cricket since the ill-fated 2023 ODI World Cup, in which India lost to Australia in the final. A recurring ankle injury saw him being ruled out for the entirety of 2024, although he did return to playing domestic cricket for Bengal in its latter months.

There was a lot of talk regarding Shami's inclusion in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which India lost soundly 1-3 to Australia. However, the BCCI's medical team did not deem him fit to return and hence, did not give him the clearance to travel despite reports of his kitbag already being flown Down Under.

It goes without saying that Shami's presence in the Indian bowling unit would have been a game-changer, as he is among those rare bowlers who can get the ball to move after pitching, and whose lines and lengths are accurate to a fault. In the 64 Tests he has played so far, Shami has picked up 229 wickets.

He is rightly considered to be among the greatest Indian bowlers of his generation, and ranks alongside the freakish Jasprit Bumrah in the top echelons. Shami's willingness to pitch the ball up in areas known better in Geoffrey Boycott's words as the 'corridor of uncertainty' makes him a dangerous customer to handle.

Opposition batters often see their footwork being taken away by Shami's precision and struggle to play against his exacting lines. What results is that top batters often end up losing their shape, dropping their head and not going to the pitch of the ball with their feet, and poking at it from a distance.

With the new ball, there are few more dangerous bowlers in the world than Shami, but he makes up for his relative lack of sophistication with the old ball with an old-fashioned willingness for hard work. His pace is often in the high 130s, and all of this has combined to help him pick up six five-wicket hauls in Test cricket.

Kapil Dev is the third-highest wicket-taker for India in Tests

Kapil Dev, Former Captain addressing Media (Sports, Side Portrait) - Source: Getty

Kapil Dev, one of the greatest swing bowlers, if not the greatest, produced by India, was known to be born with the ball moving away from the right-hander. While his action, in which he swayed just a tad outwards while delivering the ball, helped this immensely, it was also due to his dogged work ethic.

Dev finished his career in 1994 with 434 Test wickets to his name from 131 matches, and is still the highest-ranking pacer in the list of India's leading wicket-takers. Overall, Dev is ranked third, being beaten to the top two spots by a couple of freaks of nature spinners, Anil Kumble (619) and Ravichandran Ashwin (537).

At the end of 64 matches, however, Dev had picked up 249 wickets, which is a tad more than what Shami has scalped by now (229). However, comparisons between the two players can hardly be fair, as Dev had already played 64 Tests within six years of making his debut in 1978.

Shami, on the other hand, has suffered from a lot of injuries, and has taken 10 years to play the same number of Tests, after making his debut in 2013 and playing his latest in 2023. Dev ended his career with an average of 29.64 in Test cricket, while Shami's is slightly higher at 27.71.

Dev had also picked up 18 out of the 23 five-wicket hauls he would eventually do in his first 64 Tests, while Shami has taken only six so far in his career. It is unfair to Shami that he is being compared to one of the legends of this sport, even more so given that he has several years of cricket left in him.

The 34-year-old will be keen on making a swift comeback to the national team and getting back among the wickets in the series against England. This will help him prepare himself mentally and physically for the rigors of the ICC Champions Trophy, slated to be held in the UAE and Pakistan in February this year.