Ajit Agarkar, the BCCI top selector, has talked to Mohammed Shami regarding the agenda of the management and his career in national cricket. Shami had last represented India in their Champions Trophy-winning campaign this year.
Agarkar spoke on Shami’s performance over the years, as well as the pace bowler’s latest reaction to Agarkar’s fitness criticisms. He added that the selection committee will weigh Shami’s fitness after the latter has played two more games in the 2025/26 Ranji Trophy.
“He has been an incredible performer for India. If he said something, maybe that is a conversation for me to have with him or him to have with me but even before England, we said if he was fit, he would have been on that plane. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. Our domestic season has just started so we will see if he is fit enough and we will see where it goes. This is the first round of Ranji Trophy that is going on. We will find out in a couple of more games,” stated Agarkar while speaking at NDTV World Summit 2025.
Agarkar was firm that the 35-year-old’s fitness will prove vital with regards to his comeback to international cricket. He once again said that Shami was omitted from the Test series against Australia (2024/25) and England (2025) due to a lack of fitness.
“If he is bowling well, why would you not want to have someone like a Shami but what we have found in the last six-eight months to a year, even during the Australia tour, we were desperate to have him on, but unfortunately his fitness wasn’t there. If he does stay fit over the next few months, the story might be different but at this point, as far as I know, he wasn’t fit enough for that England tour,” he added.
India did not choose Shami for the Asia Cup 2025 and the forthcoming white-ball series against Australia. Shami is currently playing for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy. On Day 3 of Bengal’s game against Uttarakhand, Shami had figures of 3/37 off 14.5 overs (first innings) and 0/21 off 15 overs (second innings).
