What's gone wrong with Shami?

Mohammed Shami once made headlines with his Test debut in November, but his performances faded on the tours of South Africa and New Zealand. Aakash Chopra does technical and statistical analysis of the fast bowler on his blog cricketaakash.com to figure out what's gone wrong with him.

But it seems that the bowler we saw at the Eden Gardens and in the subsequent few matches didn't take the flight to New Zealand, for both the accuracy and the speed has been missing. While he had some success with the new ball in the ODI series, his old ball numbers (a boundary every 4th ball after 40th over) and the potency in both the Test matches was below par. He's still running in hard, the arm is still high, he's still close to the stumps and the ball is coming out okay too, yet something is a amiss. Both the consistency with regards to the off-stump channel and the pace has gone missing. When he's trying to bowl an out-swinger the ball, instead of remaining close to the off-stump, is finishing at least a foot and a half wider. The extra width allows the batsman to free his arms. And when he tries to bring it back to the right-hander, the ball drifts down the leg side for easy runs. It doesn't come as a surprise that he's looked half the bowler in NZ that he really is.