Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have announced South African left-arm chinaman Tabraiz Shamsi as the replacement for the injured Samuel Badree. Badree suffered an injury during the ICC World T20 final and will miss the entire season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Shamsi has never played for South Africa, but has had an impressive domestic career. In 44 T20 matches, he has picked up 45 wickets at an economy of just over 7.
Born in Johannesburg, the 26-year-old represents the Titans in domestic cricket and is known to be a mystery bowler who spins the ball both ways. Batsmen in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Ram Slam T20 found it hard to pick his wrong ‘un last year.
Shamsi was the top wicket-taker for his CPL franchise St Kitts and Nevis Patriots last season with 11 wickets to his name.
Speaking about the new signing, RCB’s bowling coach Allan Donald said: “Meet our new mysterious spinner. He has arrived from Johannesburg this morning. Yet to get to know him a lot better but I’ve seen him bowl for the Titans.
“He is very successful with what he’s done in the past couple of years so I think Dan (Vettori) has made a good buy for us. So look out for a lot of mystery balls in there.”
The bowling of the Virat Kohli-led side has come under a lot of criticism after they failed to defend scores against the Delhi Daredevils and the Mumbai Indians which has seen them lose back-to-back matches. The loss of Mitchell Starc and Badree has hurt the team badly so far and they will hoping that Shamsi will be able to make an impact as soon as possible.
Shamsi will be the third South African player in the RCB squad with AB de Villiers and David Wiese already part of the Bangalore-based franchise.
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