Playing for South Africa the pinnacle for Shamsi

Shamsi’s recent record has seen his shoot to the top of the international T20 bowling ranks and has also led to him being snapped up by the Rajasthan Royals for the remainder of the Indian Premier League in the UAE later in September.

The left-arm spinner also played in the inaugural season of The Hundred in the United Kingdom and takes a lot of confidence from that experience but says nothing compares to playing for your country.

“I was thinking on the flight over here about how excited I am,” Shamsi said. “Obviously I am really sad to be leaving my family at home but it’s just something different when you are playing for South Africa and it made me smile.

“You can go all over the world and play for different teams but at the end of the day this is the pinnacle and you play with guys that you have grown up playing with and against.

“That’s what makes playing for South Africa that much more special.”

Shamsi has been part of the IPL before, turning out for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2016 edition of the competition and is looking forward to being a part of the tournament again.

“It’s special – I’m not going to sit here and pretend that that I’m not excited about it!

“I’m excited because I haven’t played in Dubai or Abu Dhabi so that is exciting, and I played in the IPL when I was a lot younger and didn’t get a lot of game-time.

“With regular game-time you can showcase what you can do and become better.

“From a Proteas perspective I am really happy I did get picked up in the IPL because as I said I have never been there (Dubai/Abu Dhabi) and never played there so to be able to train and hopefully play in those conditions.

“I hope I can gain some knowledge and information about the conditions that might help us in the World Cup.”

The Proteas face Sri Lanka in three ODI’s and then three T20 Internationals starting on 2 September.