One very confusing thing for fans who have followed Indian cricket in recent years is the confusion behind the name of pace sensation Mohammed Shami, who was till November 2013 known all over as Shami Ahmed. It is a mystery to many how this change of name came about, and when the promising Shami Ahmed turned into the deadly Mohammed Shami that we know today.
The reason behind this confusion can be pinned down to the rapid rise which Shami enjoyed in his early years. The BCCI and the press could not keep up, and hastily gave him a christening. It was ‘Shami Ahmed’ who was given a call-up to the Indian ODI side in January 2013. It was the same ‘Shami Ahmed’ who broke through to international stardom, with figures of 9-4-23-1 on debut.
He was the first Indian to bowl four or more maiden overs on his ODI debut, a sign of things to come. But this record was ascribed to this Shami Ahmed, this non-existent person.
Shami’s story mirrors that of the huge migrant labour population of the country, the anonymous mass who must make a living in a land that is not their own, making peace with whatever name they are assigned. And so Shami made peace with the name that he had been given. He had no asset but an ability to bowl fast, and two decades of struggle behind him, and so carrying the baggage of an ‘Ahmed’ at the end of his name was not his biggest problem.
He was given his Test debut later that year, setting up the stage for him to seal his place over the next 18 months as one of the most successful bowlers of current times. It was at the press conference after his Test debut that Mohammed Shami emerged from the shadow of Shami Ahmed.
‘My real name is Mohammed Shami’
Speaking to reporters in his adopted hometown of Kolkata, after having run through West Indies with figures of 9/118 at the Eden Gardens, Shami finally spoke out. His figures were the best by an Indian fast bowler on Test debut, and his bowling had been a joy to watch for the 30,000 Eden crowd.
In halting sentences, but with a smile on his face, he told reporters who had come to meet Indian cricket’s latest star, “The press, the board, they have turned me from Mohammed Shami to Shami Ahmed. My actual name is Mohammed Shami, so it would be nice if I’m called Mohammed Shami. My name appears in the press as Shami Ahmed, and sometimes they even make the ‘h’ in the first name silent!”
The announcement took some of the gathered people aback, as this change of name was not a minor change made for the sake of numerology, like Krishnamachari Srikanth had become Srikkanth or like Dinesh Karthik had briefly become Kaarthik before reverting to his earlier name.
It is a common practice, however, to discard the family name in a person’s name (in this case Ahmed) and take on the title (in this case Mohammed).
Empowered with added responsibility in the India team and the knowledge that he was known all over the world by his real name, Shami went from strength to strength from November 2013 till the 2015 World Cup, where he was the leader of the highly successful Indian bowling attack with 17 wickets to his name.
However, before November 2013, Shami had played professional cricket for three years under an incorrect name.
Shouldn’t BCCI authorities have asked the player first before giving him a label? Should they have made an assumption based purely on the name of a person’s father, especially in a country which has so many different systems of nomenclature?
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