The lines are poetic, like a shayari that captures love and longing in equal measure. “Safed jersey se vida le raha hoon, lekin usse judi yaadon se kabhi nahi.” I am parting with the white jersey, but not with the memories attached to it, he said in an Instagram post on Friday, 13 years to the day since his Test debut. The words carried contentment, yet longing and regret filled the moment of parting.He was a lover with a fighter’s heart. He fought for the whites. He left his hometown Sahaspur in western Uttar Pradesh, ploughed on the sun-parched decks of Kolkata maidans, listened to his inner junoon, glazed his gifts to perfection, god-given he always emphasised, and fulfilled his dream of representing his country with his artful craft.ALSO READ | ‘Shukriya, Test cricket’: Mohammed Shami calls it a day from TestsHe fought again, against injuries and accusations, criticism of the vilest kind, defeated them, and fought again. He lost the last battle, the fight to wear the whites once more. He swallowed his ego, criss-crossed the dusty domestic fields, and reaped wickets like bundles of rice in harvest season. He finally gave up, not because his desire had wavered but because perhaps he knew it would remain unrequited. He couldn’t suffer the pain of rejection any longer.He might strive for the coloured clothes until the squad for next year’s World Cup in South Africa is announced. But Test cricket will remain a warm, defining memory. He would dwell not so much on the numbers (229 wickets at 27.71 is an incredible body of work, if an understatement of his talents) as on the satisfaction it brought him, the moments he stirred, and the sheer kick he derived from bowling.All 229 Test wickets of Shami. Happy retirement https://t.co/NMahWiQw4D— Sarang Bhalerao (@bhaleraosarang) November 7, 2026A sense that he underachieved persists, but he enthralled viewers like few others in Indian cricket. He is one of only six Indian seamers to cross 200 Test wickets, but was arguably the most artistic among them. There are spells that rush to the mind. The 5/28 in Johannesburg, the 5/44 in Centurion, the career-best 6/56 in Perth.When the elements aligned in the right measures (the limbs, mood and rhythm), there were few more illuminating sights in Test cricket than Shami rolling into his run-up with a faint grin and a shine in his eyes, short strides working up a delectably furious tempo, every nerve in his body pointing straight ahead. He painted the ugly, painful business of fast bowling with a generous coating of artistry. For him, bowling was not a chore or an occupation but a divine calling. He once explained: “When you get deeply involved in something, a kind of junoon [obsession] sets in. Anything you want to achieve, you need to have that junoon.” To him, bowling was junoon.ALSO READ | How his junoon helped Shami overcome injuries, accident, personal loss and vitriolic trollingStory continues below this adThe eye could not dwell too long on the run-up, for it would miss the synchronisation of wrists and fingers at release, the soul of his bowling. The fingers are thick and not too long, but uncannily rubbery, presenting the seam as proudly upright to the batsman. “I always try to release the ball along the seam (even when I am just toying with it),” he once told this daily. A sense that he underachieved persists, but Shami enthralled viewers like few others in Indian cricket. (Reuters Photo)He seamed the ball, sometimes viciously, both ways. He made the ball bounce off the length as well as skid, a rare gift. He brought theatre with nip-backers that left stumps flipping back like a gymnast. He coaxed wilful obedience from the ball, new, old, or semi-old.Deception began with love. “My love was always the ball. You have to care,” he told this daily. He never threw any ball away but treasured it at home, because “each had a distinct trait. I knew how much harkat (movement) the ball does, how much it swings, how much it reverses. So I never felt like throwing any ball away,” he said.In between balls he talked to himself, felt the ball like a parent would, carved out imaginary angles with his hands, as if the game itself was being generated in his mind.He relished teasing batsmen cerebrally, more than beating them with pace and movement. With Bumrah, he formed one half of the most dazzling fast-bowling duet in Indian cricket. Together, they featured in 25 Tests and stacked 202 wickets. He was too simple a man to let ego tear him. At a dropped catch, he held his hands on his head with a wry smile.Story continues below this adThe outcomes did not weigh too heavily on him. Wickets were merely byproducts of the act he relished doing the most. He was a bowler born for bowling’s sake, his love unconditional. Only such a pure-souled bowler could write such a shayari-like farewell note.Indian cricket would miss his skills, maybe feel a pang of guilt in its inability to fully optimise his talents; but cricket itself would feel the void of a soul as pure as the whites he wore, now folded into memory. As the memories attached to the whites would live forever in Shami’s heart, so would Shami in the audience’s mind. He was a fighter with a lover’s heart.