Late-career impasse: making sense of the Shami situation - The Hindu

Very few fast-bowlers age successfully. Their wicket-taking nous and cognitive abilities may remain intact, but so extreme are the fitness demands that once they are on the wrong side of 30, bodies tend to fragment and physical frailties become all the more evident.It is no surprise then that in the list of the top-15 cricketers with the longest Test careers, there are only two out-and-out pacemen — James Anderson and Imran Khan.Mohammed Shami, 35, will not join those two illustrious men, with more than 1,000 wickets between them, in that roll of honour, but ever since he made his much-awaited comeback last November after a year-long absence because of an ankle injury, his main focus has been to successfully age. There appears to be a consistent desire to create meaning from whatever is left of his cricketing life even as he comes to terms with the inevitable bodily vulnerabilities.There has, however, been one major obstacle — India's selectors are unmoved.