Selection headache: Nehra or Shami for Champions Trophy

New Delhi, April 23
BCCI’s senior selection committee will be fretting over India’s bowling combination for the upcoming Champions Trophy with a clear toss-up for the fourth pacer’s slot between Ashish Nehra and Mohammed Shami.
The cut-off date set by ICC for announcing the 15-member squad for the Champions Trophy is April 15 and the squad is likely to be named today.
The date of the selection committee meeting has not been finalised yet as some officials in BCCI want the ICC issues pertaining to revenue sharing and governance to be resolved first.
While Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are an automatic selection in the spin department, it will be the fifth member of the pace attack who will prompt some discussion.
Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav are certain in the 15-member squad subject to fitness. So is Hardik Pandya, who will be there as the pace bowling all-rounder. This leaves one slot in the pace department for which there are two contenders — Mohammed Shami and Ashish Nehra.
The last time Shami played an ODI was during the World Cup semifinals against Australia at Sydney, back in 2015. Nehra’s last ODI appearance was in the 2011 World Cup semifinals, though he made a comeback in 2016 in the T20 format.
According to top BCCI officials, skipper Virat Kohli wants Nehra to be part of the bowling attack. Of late, Nehra has missed a few games for Sunrisers Hyderabad due to neck spasms and is expected to be fit next week. Shami, on the other hand, has also not been picked regularly by Delhi Daredevils, which means the selection committee has not been able to have a good look at his current form.
One should not be surprised if young Basil Thampi is kept on standby as he has impressed one and all with his ability to bowl yorkers at will during the death overs.