Spinner Tabraiz Shamsi is determined to make the most of his opportunity after stepping into a frontline role in the Proteas’ limited-overs teams.

The 30-year-old has enjoyed a composed and disciplined summer of cricket as he battled the best batsmen from England and Australia in T20I and ODI series.

And in an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Shamsi cut a very satisfied figure after being introduced as the frontline spinner in Mark Boucher’s new-look white-ball teams after spending many years in the shadow of Imran Tahir.

‘Since joining the national side, I have been on the backburner, played here and there, and I understood why I didn’t play a lot because of the job Imran Tahir was doing,’ said Shamsi.

‘Now, it’s nice to be able to play consistently and learn all the time and even to make mistakes. I look forward to going out there and trying things and getting a few things wrong because I have an opportunity in the next game to go out there and fix it. And then when things work, it provides a bit of reassurance that I’m on the right track, so it has been good to see that.’

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The 30-year-old missed the final ODI match against Australia in Potchefstroom to be with his wife, who give birth to their first-born.

But, prior to that, he was a key wicket-taking option for captain Quinton de Kock, accounting for 12 wickets in both limited-overs series’ against England and the Australians.

‘I had to wait for three years on the sidelines and that wasn’t nice, so now that I have the chance, I want to take it. We’ve spoken a lot about role definition and I know that I don’t have to bowl variations every ball, for example. I have to be able to do both roles – attacking and containing. And I saw it during the Australia ODI series. Even when I didn’t take wickets, I saw that I was able to win games by keeping things tight.’

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