The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is looking for the approval of Sport Science Department of Centre of Excellence over the fitness of Mohammed Shami before they decide to send him to Australia for the remaining matches of Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He is expected to fly at some point of the series, and BCCI wants it to be a decision that does not risk his fitness.
Since Shami is going to play all group stage matches of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the head of BCCI’s sports Science wing in Bengaluru, Nitin Patel, along with trained Nishant Bardule and SS Das have been stationed in Rajkot to monitor Shami.
The information given by BCCI to Nitin and his team is to consider whether Shami can handle the physical demand of a high-intensity Test match. This is being done to get update on Shami in case he gets called up to join Indian team in Australia.
Nishant was working with Shami till Saturday, but has now left Rajkot as he has left the latter with drills to go through. Nitin has stayed back with Das. BCCI wouldn’t proceed with selecting Shami until the approval comes from Sports Science Department.
