Only a few months ago, Mohammed Shami was on cloud nine after being part of India's 2025 Champions Trophy win with a strong return from injury. It was a quick fall from grace. The veteran pacer struggled mightily with SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) in IPL 2025, stuttering through poor form, expensive overs, and dropped from the squad. His 11th IPL season was mostly forgettable. Shami had ankle surgery after the 2023 ODI World Cup and missed all of 2024, including IPL and the T20 World Cup. He came back to domestic cricket, and he performed well for Bengal in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, most notably taking 11 wickets with a 7.86 economy rate. After his domestic form made him a white-ball contender in India, even with rustiness he took nine wickets in five games in the Champions Trophy earlier this year. But shifting focus back to T20 proves challenging. Shami's indisputably high reputation was not other than exaggerated with a heavy price of INR 10 crore, felt differently in IPL 2025, as he would not be in his groove. Five wickets first five games, and then only one from the next four. The loss of form and match against Punjab Kings were modelled badly in his career at only 75 runs from four overs, the second dearest four over match in IPL history. SRH then brought in Ehsan Malinga, the Sri Lankan speedster, in place of Shami. And that did the trick. Malinga proved to be the man to go to, giving control and crucial wickets at the death, both of which Shami had found difficult to offer. Malinga returned 13 wickets in seven matches. Also READ: Ajit Agarkar on Virat Kohli’s Test Retirement Decision After their win over KKR, SRH head coach Daniel Vettori defended Shami by saying his poor form was because he had been away from the T20 action for too long. Vettori said after the SRH vs KKR: “I just think the challenge is remaining consistent for him. I think that’s where he’s at his best when he hits that length, and probably just wasn’t at that metronomically best that we’ve seen in the past, and that’s partly a long layoff; that’s partly the game. I know that he worked exceptionally hard and he was desperate to do well, but it just wasn’t quite his season, but there’s no reason why he can’t bounce back because of the quality of the bowler that he is”