Still believe in pitching the ball up and taking wickets, says Shami after career-best display

In all the matches India had played in the World Cup leading up to their semi-final, captain Rohit Sharma had plenty of aces up his sleeve with all his bowlers firing and sharing wickets. Come the knockout fixture against New Zealand though, most of Sharma's weapons didn't fire. It boiled down to Mohammed Shami’s superb effort of 7/57 to extinguish the New Zealand fightback in their gallant chase of India’s total of 397/4.

- Sanjjeev K Samyal

It is the second straight time Shami hurt New Zealand. In the league game against the Black Caps in Dharamsala, which was Shami's first of the tournament, he had picked a fifer. In his previous match at the Wankhede, against Sri Lanka, he had picked up a five-wicket haul, bundling them out for a mere 55 runs.

"I was waiting for my chances. I didn't play a lot of white-ball cricket. My return started against New Zealand [in Dharamsala]," said the star bowler who went to the top of the wickets tally with 23 scalps. Amazingly he has played half the number of games compared to other leading bowlers of the tournament, his haul coming in just six innings.