When he was a mischievous kid, he loved doing magic tricks and entertaining people, but along the way, he encountered another passion, which became his profession. Meet South African spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, who was in the city for the IPL. While he didn’t get to play any game for RCB, he did spend a considerable amount of time in nammooru.
Ask him how his passion for the sport was ignited and he answers, “Growing up, I was the youngest in the house, so I always used to play with the big guys. When I started playing cricket, the wickets used to be longer than me! Surprisingly, I was a fast bowler when I was in school until I went to high school when the coaches told me that I should start bowling spin. I am really thankful for that right now.”
As a fervent magician who wanted to be a professional someday, Shamsi reveals, “It wasn’t just a phase, I was quite serious about it. But when I was around 15, cricket started taking over. In fact, when the RCB-SRH game was stalled because of the rain, I was doing magic tricks for the boys,” he smiles.
The chinaman bowler is known for his unique bus driver celebration where he breaks into a jig on the field after he takes a wicket! “My wicket keeper back home in domestic cricket and I like to mess around on the field a bit - that’s my way of having fun. We play in such a highly competitive environment that we forget how to have fun. As young kids, when we started playing the game, we enjoyed it, but now, we’ve forgotten how to do it. There are no guarantees in life because you never know when your last game might be. I’m quite passionate, so that comes out on the field,” he says.
The 27-year-old’s Instagram account had a lot of posts of him exploring B’luru and having a ball. “It’s my second year in the city, so I’ve made friends here. KL Rahul is a local boy so I met his pals. I even went to watch a movie,” he shares. Admitting that he’s a bit of a joker in the changing room, Shamsi reveals that he bonded well with his team mates. “We played a lot of FIFA in the hotel room - there was a fierce competition amongst the boys.”
The cricketer is also all praise for former Indian captain M.S. Dhoni, who propelled the Pune team to the finals in Wednesday’s game against the Mumbai Indians. “There is no doubt about his class. Cricket is a game of ups and down, but at the end of the day, class will always outshine everything else, He is possibly the greatest finisher of all times,” he expresses.
