joined Mohun Bagan Cricket Club, one of the best sides in Bengal, in order to be considered for selection to the full state side. He bowled to former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly in the Eden Gardens nets; Ganguly recommended him to the state selectors and soon after Shami was picked in the Bengal squad for the 2010–11 Ranji Trophy. Domestic career Shami took four wickets on his senior debut for Bengal in a Twenty20 match in October 2010. He made his first-class cricket debut the following month against Assam at Eden Gardens, taking three wickets in a high scoring match. In February 2012 his bowling helped East Zone win their first Duleep Trophy title; he took eight wickets in the match and was described as "outstanding, consistently getting bounce and zip from just short of a good length". He had only played in the match following an injury to Abu Nechim, but it proved to be a significant breakthrough in Shami's career; he had been described as "little-known" before the match, but by April was being touted as a player to watch in the upcoming Indian Premier League season. He was selected to tour the West Indies with the India A side and "impressed" with his bowling on pitches which were considered to be generally unhelpful to fast bowlers. Shami was considered to have been the "surprise package" of the tour for India A, and impressed the team's coach Lalchand Rajput with his strength and consistency whilst bowling, as well as with his batting; batting tenth in the first unofficial Test match, he scored 27 runs in a partnership of 73 with Cheteshwar Pujara which won the match for India A. Later in the year he was one of only two fast bowlers retained for the India A tour of New Zealand, although he only played in two of the six matches on the tour. During the 2012–13 Ranji Trophy, Shami took 11 wickets in a match against Madhya Pradesh in November, including seven wickets for 79 runs (7/79) in the first innings, a return which included a hat-trick. The following month he took 4/36 and 6/71 against Hyderabad on a green wicket at Eden Gardens, his second ten-wicket match in only his 15th first-class game. In the five Ranji Trophy matches he played during the season he took 28 wickets at a bowling average of 21.25 runs per wicket,