Mohammed Shami has not played for India since the Champions Trophy final in March 2025. He last played Test cricket in the 2023 WTC final. He is past 36 now. He also refuses to give up.
Featuring in his 100th first-class match on a red-soil Chepauk pitch in the Duleep Trophy final, with little assistance on offer to any sort of bowling, Shami was arguably the standout bowler from either side.
He came away with figures of 16-5-42-2 for East Zone, which contrasted starkly with Mohammed Siraj's first-innings returns of 25-3-140-0. While Siraj tightened up on Wednesday's fourth day in East's second innings, Shami and Mukesh Kumar were the only bowlers to generate swing with the new ball and reverse-swing with the older one. At 36, Shami is probably not running in like a horse anymore, but he is still good enough to hit the deck hard and have batters ducking and weaving.
Half-an-hour before the start of play on day three, following heavy overnight rain, Shami was the first East bowler to make his way out to one of the practice pitches and kept pounding the middle of it.
Shami doesn't crank it up to 140kph anymore; his knees, ankle and hamstring are all creaky, but he's still up for a scrap. Against opposition batters. Against Chennai's sweltering heat. Against his critics who think he's toast. Against his own age.
Once he got the new ball in his hand on day three, he released it with the familiar bolt-upright seam, with no hint of wobble, and got it to swing away from both the South openers Ricky Bhui and N Jagadeesan. After gleaning conventional swing with a new ball in a short, sharp opening burst of 3-2-1-0, Shami returned with the older one and found reverse-swing, getting the ball to duck sharply into Shaik Rasheed and pin him lbw for 27 off 48 balls.
Then when it seemed like R Smaran, who had racked up a chart-topping 950 runs in 14 innings in the 2025-26 Ranji season, had bedded in, Shami returned for a fresh spell and dislodged him for 23 off 55 balls. From around the wicket, Shami got a 54-over old ball to move away off the seam and kiss Smaran's outside edge. Shami's team-mates were so thrilled that they jumped on top of him after UltraEdge detected a spike as the ball passed the bat.
On day four, when Shami speared a similar ball - angling in from around the stumps and nipping away - he hit Tilak Varma's outside edge too, but this ball landed just short of gully. Shami went much wider of the crease next ball and got a back-of-a-length delivery to skid into middle stump, leaving Tilak toppling over.
Then in the 83rd over, Shami went much shorter, catching CV Milind in a tangle and smacking him on his bicep. Shami also pinged T Vijay's shoulder and harried him with bouncers, helping East gain a monster lead and all but seal the Duleep title.
Ahead of the final, East captain Ishan Kishan had delivered a glowing appraisal of Shami's intensity and hunger to keep going.
"I think he is just one of the best," Kishan had said of Shami. "He has been a legend of this game and he has been doing so well since he started playing for Bengal. He has been picking wickets, giving all his energy and he has done so well for Indian cricket team, especially looking in the previous matches as well.
"Looking at his effort as a captain, I felt very nice because Shami bhai coming in, asking me for those extra overs to get the wickets, I think this is something which always gives confidence to skippers as well. So it's always good to have him in the team."
After day three, Mukesh also spoke of Shami's impact on the East attack. "We were discussing how the ball was moving, how it could reverse, and things like that," Mukesh said. "When I was bowling, he was advising me, and when he came on to bowl after my spell, I shared what I was sensing off the pitch with him. We were keeping that communication going."
Shami, along with Mukesh, ensured that East didn't feel depleted by the absence of left-arm fingerspinner Anukul Roy, who didn't take the field on days three and four after suffering a finger injury while batting.
The Chepauk crowd, which included a bunch of schoolkids on Wednesday, also toasted Shami's shift across two hot days, clapping him off the field. If East have ambitions of securing an outright win, Shami will be back in action with the ball on the final day. He continues to rage against the dying of the light.