Dear Mohammed Shami,
Well, well, well, what shall I say? What can I say? What is there left to say? You have probably tasted it all. Rainer Maria Rilkey wrote once, “Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, Just keep going. No feeling is final.” I believe that you are the living personification of this very poem.
Mohammad Shami have witnessed the highs and the lows. Your dearest ones left you and then even had the audacity of tarnishing you. Mohammad Shami came up from a very humble background. And yet here you are today, the heartthrob of a million people. In a country that has always chanted Virat and Sachin, today the crowds are bustling with the cheers of “Shami, shaaaaaaaaaaaaamiiiii…”
I still don’t remember when did the Indian fans last scream a name of a bowler in a World Cup match. There have been greats of the game, names like Javagal Srinath, names like Zaheer Khan, names like Anil Kumble and yet you are the first one to revolutionize the Indian crowd into screaming a bowler’s name.
That heartfelt smile of yours, it makes me go all Bollywood and crave for those one of those movies being made for you. What an absolute menace you have been in this World Cup and the world is still spinning on its head. In fact, such has been the magnitude of your charisma, that people have now started thinking that you are bowling with a device inside the ball.
No one would yet believe that you have worked day and night, you have been working for years, you have made countless sacrifices only to arrive to this moment. No one would yet believe that this is years of practice, years of struggles, years of hard work and an eternity of belief.
No one would say all those unplayable yards that you stepped foot in. No one would say that you have gone through hell to come to this juncture. You know what Shami, I think, people just don’t see the good. They only know the glam. They only know the bad. So anywhere in between the glam and the bad, they are blind, they are least interested.
Shami, this has been a journey to remember. You have made me believe. You have made me smile. You have made a thousands of Indians smile. I know Australia has always been a tough competitor for in the knockouts, they are a beast of a different composition and yet I know we will survive. Not just because you are there but because we believe in Team India. It’s a family. It’s a love story. We will come around. We love you Shami.
Yours sincerely,
A crazy cricket fan.
