India pacer Mohammed Shami recently shared entertaining insights into the Indian cricket team’s dressing room culture, naming veteran opener Shikhar Dhawan as the ultimate mood-lifter in the squad.
Having shared the dressing room with Dhawan for nearly a decade across formats, Shami revealed how the left-handed batter relied on humour and impromptu performances to help the team cope with the intense pressures of international cricket.
While a match defeat usually leaves a team dressing room quiet and solemn, Shami recalled that Dhawan possessed a completely different mechanism to deal with disappointment.
“Shikhar is very funny. He does those things. Say we lost a match; everyone comes and sits in the change room. Shikhar wants to do something different. He will just laugh very loudly,” Shami stated during an interaction.
Punjabi Music and Table Dancing
“If I ask why are you laughing, he says because we lost. He does such things,” Shami explained. “Anytime, he will stand on the table and start dancing to Punjabi music. These things create that atmosphere in the dressing room.”
Shami emphasized that such antics were crucial during long, exhausting tours throughout the year. “We also enjoy it because winning and losing keep happening. When you are playing the whole year, you will win and lose. All these things are there. But no one then goes into a very sad mood in the dressing room.”
Yuvraj Singh’s Prank on a Nervous Pacer
During the same interview, Shami took a trip down memory lane to recall his initial days after joining the national setup. Spell bound by the presence of legends he had previously only watched on television, the young pacer kept to himself during his first official team meeting.
However, his quiet nature quickly caught the attention of veteran all-rounder Yuvraj Singh, who decided to pull a harmless prank on the newcomer.
“The first time I joined the Indian team, I did not know how things were. There was a team meeting a day before the game. When I walked in through the door and looked around, there was not one name that had not come in my dream,” Shami recalled.
“I just sat quietly. Yuvraj Singh asked me to stand on the chair. What can you tell him? So I did that. He told me to give a speech. I had forgotten everything after seeing all the names. I could not say much. I just told my name and where I was from. I could not say more than that as I could not remember anything,” he concluded.