Shami called time on his Test career on November 6, exactly 13 years after making his debut.
India's bowling coach Morne Morkel paid a heartfelt tribute to Mohammad Shami following the latter's retirement from Test cricket, acknowledging how the veteran pacer helped him adapt to the team's culture and overcome the language barrier when he first joined the setup.
Shami called time on his Test career on Friday (November 6), exactly 13 years after making his debut. He left the format with 229 wickets from 64 matches, but his final red-ball appearance for India came in the June 2023 World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia.
Although Morkel joined the coaching staff in 2024 rather than during Shami's active Test tenure, the two worked together during the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.
"Yeah, I was quite fortunate when I first started with the group for Shami to be a part of the team. You know, highly skillful player, a quality guy to have around in the group. And I was quite lucky when I joined for him to bring sort of the Indian language into the dressing room. He helped me quite a lot. So a sad day to see him go," Morkel said while speaking to Sony Sports ahead of the second ODI against New Zealand in Wellington.
While he has hung up his boots in the longest format, Shami specified that he will remain active and continue to play white-ball cricket both at the domestic level and in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Morkel commended Shami for toiling hard in domestic cricket, with the ambition of earning his place back in the national side.
"I mean, he's still bowling a lot of overs back home and it's still great to see," the bowling coach stated.
Following his heroics as the leading wicket-taker (24 scalps) at the 2023 ODI World Cup, Mohammad Shami underwent ankle surgery in early 2024 and faced subsequent knee setbacks, which ruled him out of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia.
The right-arm quick returned to white-ball international cricket in January 2025 for series against England and featured in the Champions Trophy. However, he missed out on Test selection for the England tour in 2025, with then chief selector Ajit Agarkar citing in the media that Shami's workload was not where it needed to be and that medical staff had advised against picking him for a grueling red-ball series.
Despite proving his fitness and form in domestic cricket, Shami was sidelined from India’s white-ball setup as well.