Shami to spearhead Bengal pace attack in Vijay Hazare Trophy

Outoffavour India pacer Mohammed Shami who has been in impressive form on the domestic circuit with 36 wickets across formats has been named in Bengals squad for the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy oneday competitionShami who has not played for India for a while and was overlooked for the recent series against South Africa has enjoyed a strong return to competitive cricket for Bengal following a lengthy injury layoffShamis fitness has been a subject of debate in recent times after the pacer missed out on selectionHowever despite the absence of a national callup the senior fast bowler has been a standout performer in domestic tournamentsBeginning with the redball season Shami picked up 20 wickets from four Ranji Trophy matches at an average of 1860 including a 538 as Bengal remain unbeaten from five outings after securing three outright wins to sit atop Group CHe carried his form into the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy finishing as Bengals leading wickettaker with 16 scalps from seven matches at an average of 1493In the Vijay Hazare Trophy Shami will spearhead Bengals threepronged pace attack which also includes India pacers Akash Deep and Mukesh KumarIn the squad announced on Friday toporder batter Abhimanyu Easwaran was named captainBengal have been placed in Elite Group B and will begin their campaign against Vidarbha in Rajkot on December 24 The other teams in the group are Assam Baroda Jammu and Kashmir Hyderabad Chandigarh and Uttar PradeshThe tournament will be held across Ahmedabad Group A Rajkot Group B Jaipur Group C and Alur Group D while Bengalurus Centre of Excellence will host the knockout stages from January 1218Bengal squad Abhimanyu Easwaran Captain Anustup Majumdar Abishek Porel WK Sudip Kr Gharami Sumanta Gupta Sumit Nag WK Chandrahas Dash Shahbaz Ahmed Karan Lal Mohammed Shami Akash Deep Mukesh Kumar Sayan Ghosh Ravi Kumar Aamir Gani Vishal Bhati Ankit MishraThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever