Jasprit Bumrah has been replaced in India’s T20 World Cup squad by Mohammed Shami. Shami has arrived in Australia, according to a BCCI release, and he will join the team in Brisbane before India’s official warm-up matches against the hosts and New Zealand on October 17 and 19 respectively.

Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj, who was named Player of the Series in India’s 2-1 victory over South Africa in the 50-over format earlier in the week, have been named as back-ups, as ESPNcricinfo previously reported. The BCCI announced that the two will soon travel to Australia.

Due to a stress-related back injury, Bumrah was expected to miss approximately six weeks when he was ruled out of the World Cup on October 3.

After head coach Rahul Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma hinted that they would prefer someone with previous experience playing in Australia, Shami was the front-runner to take his place. Shami has travelled to Australia on multiple occasions, and he helped India win two Test series and an ODI World Cup in 2015, where he took the second most wickets for India.

Shami will play seam bowling alongside Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, and Harshal Patel in Australia, with Hardik Pandya serving as the all-rounder. 

🚨 NEWS 🚨: Shami replaces Bumrah In India’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Squad. #TeamIndia | #T20WorldCup

Details 🔽https://t.co/nVovMwmWpI

— BCCI (@BCCI) October 14, 2022

In the past three months, Shami has not participated in any cricket activities.After testing positive for Covid-19, he was removed from India’s T20I squad for the September home series against Australia and South Africa. After returning a negative test on September 28, Shami resumed training and is believed to have passed the BCCI-mandated cardiovascular tests last week.

Shami hasn’t played T20Is in nearly a year. The last time he played in the format was at the UAE World Cup in 2021. In the tournament, he took six wickets in five games at an economy of 8.84.

But since then, he has made a lot of money playing in the Indian Premier League for Gujarat Titans, who started out as champions. Shami ended up taking the most wickets for the Titans, taking 20, but he also played in all 16 games. Particularly impressive were his power play numbers. He shared the most wickets in this phase with Mukesh Choudhary, one of only two net bowlers in Australia with Chetan Sakariya. His economy of 6.62 was also the fifth best among the 14 bowlers in the competition who bowled 20 or more overs. However, his economy was 9.63 at his passing.

Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, and Deepak Chahar, the other reserve players who were originally mentioned, are not travelling at the moment. Chahar was touted as Shami’s closest rival for the position that became vacant after Bumrah’s back injury. Chahar, on the other hand, is at the National Cricket Academy right now because of new concerns about his back. After that, the South Africa series pulled him out.

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Up until October 15, teams that qualified directly for the World Cup can make roster adjustments without obtaining permission from the event’s technical committee.

India squad for T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul (vice-capt), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami

Reserve players: Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Shardul Thakur.