Mohammed Shami Retires From Test Cricket After 13 Years

A Test cap received on November 6, 2013, was handed back on November 6, 2026. Mohammed Shami, 36, announced his retirement from Test cricket on October 6 via Instagram, in a video posted on the anniversary of his debut.

“This cap, this ball, made me Mohammed Shami,” he said in the video. He spoke of falling, getting hurt and getting up again, and thanked his coaches, trainers, physios and fans. The retirement covers international Tests only. He will continue in white-ball cricket, in the IPL and at home. He is named in Bengal’s squad for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, which begins on November 14.

His last Test was the World Test Championship final against Australia at The Oval in London in June 2023, which India lost. He has not played international cricket since the Champions Trophy final in March 2025, at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The team management had begun to look beyond him. Nobody at The Oval knew it was the last one.

The career figures: 64 Tests, 229 wickets, an average of 27.71 and a strike rate of 50.2. That leaves him as India’s sixth-highest wicket-taker among fast bowlers. At home, Shami averaged 22.1, taking a wicket every 42.6 balls. India won 31 of the 64 Tests he played and drew 13, and never lost a home series with him in the side. Nearly 45 per cent of his dismissals were bowled or LBW.

The debut came at Eden Gardens in Kolkata against West Indies. He took nine for 118 in the match, still his best. His cap number was 279. During India’s 4-0 series win over England in 2016, he broke Alastair Cook’s stump in half, in the second Test at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam. He tended to look more dangerous in the second innings than the first.

Shami was born in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, and grew up in Sahaspur. At 15 he was taken to a coach, Badruddin Siddique, in Moradabad. In Kolkata, with no place to stay, he lived with the coach Debabrata Das. He made his Ranji Trophy debut for Bengal in November 2010 and still plays for them. He was the leading wicket-taker at the 2023 World Cup and the fastest bowler to 50 wickets in the tournament’s history. In the IPL, he plays for Lucknow Super Giants.

In May 2025, when reports suggested he would follow Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli out of Test cricket, Shami posted a screenshot of one on Instagram Stories and called it the worst story of the day. The report was early by about eighteen months.