A tone of resignation punctuates Badruddin Siddiqui’s shrill voice. “Usko aur kya sabit karna hain?” he asks, rhetorically, to the omission of Mohammed Shami, one of India’s greatest all-format seamers and Badruddiun’s most famous product. “What else does he need to prove?” “He has art, wickets, fitness, form, aur kya chahiye?” he fumes to this masthead and fails to wrap his head around Shami’s continued non-inclusion from Team India. “I simply don’t understand why!” he says, his tenor shrivelling. Most Shami sympathisers would relate to his coach’s angst. In the last three months, since the onset of the domestic season, he has straddled in all three formats, excelled in each and regained much of the sharpness that intermittent injuries had eroded. In four Ranji Trophy games, he bowled an average of 20 overs an innings, nabbed 20 wickets at 18.60, crucial to Bengal sitting atop their pool; in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he grabbed 16 in seven games and in Vijay Hazare Trophy he has 11 at 22.50 in five games, dispensing nearly nine …