London: Mohammed Siraj woke up at 6 am on Monday. He typed the word ‘believe’ on his phone’s browser. He discovered a Cristiano Ronaldo backshot where the footballer is seen pointing to the sky, with the words ‘believe’ superimposed on the photograph. He downloaded and saved the image as his phone’s wallpaper.
Just over a year ago, after
Jasprit Bumrah helped India clinch a thrilling T20 World Cup final in Barbados, a video of Siraj had gone viral, in which he said, “I only believe in Jassi bhai (Bumrah). He is a gamechanger.”
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Siraj is a simple human being who has done superhuman things over the course five Test matches in the last two months on English soil. After finishing off the last Test match with a searing yorker, he was the only pacer standing — from both sides — after playing in all five Test matches.
On Monday after the dramatic win in the fifth Test, with Siraj next to him, Gill said, “We always tell him that we only believe in Siraj.”
‘Believe’ is the most operative word in any conversation around Siraj. He is a man driven by emotion. He looks for emotional triggers to motivate himself.
Joe Root laughed off his on-field stares and chatters on Sunday evening.
“He has the fake anger. He is a lovely lad and a good competitor. I love playing against him,” Root would say of the duel with Siraj.
Siraj has truly come of age on this tour. At a time when India’s fast-bowling resources started to look grim with all the uncertainty around Bumrah’s fitness, he has put his hand up and body on the line to emerge as India’s true leader of the pace attack in Test cricket.
He has bowled over 185 overs on this tour. This has been one of the flattest and most batting-friendly English summers. He came out of the summer with 23 wickets in nine innings at an average 26.9. Yet, he cringes at the term ‘workload management’.
“To be honest, my body is fine right now. It’s almost 187 overs in this series. When you play for the country, you give everything. Don’t think too much. It doesn’t matter if you are bowling your sixth over or the ninth of a spell. I believe in myself. You bowl every ball for the country, not for yourself,” Siraj said.
Siraj channelled all his passion into the spell he put in at the Oval. He was hurling deliveries at 90 mph on Monday morning. He ran in every delivery with his limbs and mind directed towards one goal — get India over the line.
There is ample guile and skill in his bowling too. It’s true that the conditions favoured seam and swing but the control over the proceedings he had on Monday morning, while darting the ball around in the air and off the seam, was impeccable.
If he played with Jamie Smith’s eagerness to score quickly with outswingers, he darted one back from the same spot to trap Jamie Overton in front of the stumps.
Siraj talks about being a leader now. Much of his career has gone by in the shadow of Bumrah’s excellence. He has emerged out of it. He has proven that he can carry a pace attack even as Indian cricket stays obsessed with Bumrah’s ‘workload management’ issues.
The time he spent playing second fiddle has groomed him to be a leader. He has worked on the art of bowling in partnerships. He chose to remind the press that he picked 20 wickets even in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy which was headlined by a stellar Bumrah.
Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!