IND vs ENG: Mohammed Siraj conquers snubs, trolls and misfortune | Cricket News
Modern sports science has a plethora of devices to track an athlete’s sleep, diet, workload, muscle mass, heart rate, etc. Nothing, though, has been discovered yet to record ‘human spirit’, which Mohammed Siraj epitomised so perfectly over 25 days in England. His performances culminated in a pulsating climax at south London’s cricketing cathedral, the Oval, on Monday.The pacer bowled over 42 spells in the series, bowled 1,122 balls — a majority of them over 140 kmph — induced 283 false shots and took 23 wickets. Siraj, running in with the Dukes ball, was an arresting sight. A privilege in modern times reserved, fairly or unfairly, only for the great Jasprit Bumrah, and on the odd occasion, Mohammed Shami. Two bowlers who Siraj has been in the constant shadow of.Siraj, though, is not unaccustomed to snubs and back-handed compliments and bowling from unfavourable ends like he did at Leeds, where he ran up the hill from the Football Stand End, which hampered his pace and rhythm. He did it, nonetheless, so that Bumrah could get to bowl from the Kirkstall Lane End.
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As recently as July 6, on Day Five of the Edgbaston Test which India won by a record 336 runs, ICC president and former BCCI secretary Jay Shah congratulated a large group of players for the triumph. He curiously ignored Siraj in his post on X, despite the pacer claiming a six-for in the first innings to help India earn a handsome lead. In Jan, after excluding Siraj from the squad for the Champions Trophy, India’s ODI captain Rohit Sharma had explained that Siraj was not effective with the older ball. For someone who had a 48.2 dot ball percentage in the death overs and was the highest wicket-taker in ODIs by an Indian in the year leading up to the Champions Trophy, it was a strange assessment.No wonder Siraj made a loaded comment during a presser before the IPL. “Numbers speak for themselves.”Rohit himself had made the rather bizarre error of using him with an older ball in the 2023 World Cup final in Ahmedabad and giving Shami the new ball, despite Siraj being a roaring success in the tournament while opening the attack. Just a couple of months earlier in the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka, he had unleashed havoc at the Premadasa, bowling a sorcerous spell of 6/21, including a four-wicket over to bowl them out for 50. The ‘tragedy’ of Nov 19 had ended with the winning runs, courtesy of a cruel hack by Glenn Maxwell to mid-wicket, scored off Siraj and the bowler having his head in his hands. ‘Excitable’ and ‘combative’ are words that are often used to describe the pacer. His hunger, though, is seldom mentioned. It makes him run through a brick wall for captains. It comes from survival instincts, thanks to him graduating from the university of hard knocks, courtesy his humble beginnings in the modest by lanes of Toli Chowki in Hyderabad. He had played all his initial cricket in rubber slippers there and did not bowl with a leather ball till 2015.His hunger made him ask captain Ajinkya Rahane on debut, at the MCG on Boxing Day 2020, after he was not used for 27 overs and had to come on as fourth change, “Main kab ball daaloon (when do I bowl)?” Ravindra Jadeja, India’s dependable allrounder in the series with over 500 runs, who was battling to win the Lord’s Test from an impossible situation, also tapped into another attribute that describes Siraj: ‘Emotion’. He asked the No. 11 to defend as resolutely as he could and use his late father’s struggles to see his son succeed, as motivation. Gods were unkind to him that day as a perfectly played defensive shot rolled onto the stumps from the middle of his bat and dislodged just one bail to see India lose by 22 runs.Agenda-driven trolls promptly heaped abuse on him. The gods were unkind to Siraj on Day Four at the Oval too, where a misstep on the boundary while trying to catch a miscued hook by Harry Brook at deep square leg led him to reprieve the attacking batter on 19. It was a mistake that nearly cost India the Test. More ammunition for trolls.
On Monday, though, the elements conspired to make conditions heavy enough to help the 77-over Dukes hoop around crazy angles. Siraj, the man who had starred in all eight previous victories in SENA countries since his debut, ran in once again, armed with the word he used as a motivational screenshot on his phone: Belief. The ninth win was delivered after Siraj dismissed Gus Atkinson. And, as he went on a celebratory run, he also ran far away to emerge from the shadows of the man whom he idolises and yearns to hug after a five-for: Bumrah.
