IND vs WI, Day 1: Sorcery, skill, stamina! Mohammed Siraj dazzles with four-for

Ahmedabad: You could sense why Team India’s support staff kept looking at Mohammed Siraj to check if he was okay bowling for as long as he did during practice two days before India’s first Test in Ahmedabad against West Indies. It was hot and muggy, and Siraj was bowling full tilt for 45 minutes. Yet, he kept pushing as the Indian top-order tried hard to negotiate his deliveries.

As of today, he is India’s most valuable pace bowling asset. A workhorse and a strike bowler. A combination of talent and energy. India’s Mr Unbreakable in the series against England for the sheer volume of overs he sent down and the protagonist in the heady Test win at The Oval, the Hyderabad pacer was the influential figure again on Day One of the first Test at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Thursday.



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His performance of 4-40 from 14 overs enabled the hosts to bowl out the West Indies for 162 after the visitors elected to bat.

In reply, India were for 121 for 2 with KL Rahul on 53 and Shubman Gill on 18.

Using his enormous bouquet of skills, benevolent friends like a helpful pitch and clouds hiding the sun intermittently to aid movement, he terrorised the West Indies top-order that comprises batters with shaky defensive techniques and frail minds. Siraj bowled right till the first drinks break in which his spell read 7-2-19-3. He sent back Tagenarine Chanderpaul (0) caught behind down the leg side in his second over.

Jasprit Bumrah, playing on his home ground, did not initially get his line right to the lefthanders, but once he found it, the rhythm returned. He produced a beautiful delivery from round the stumps that drew John Campbell forward, and the delivery that came in with the angle straightened after pitching. With the batter’s bat squeezed between his front pad and the ball, umpire Richard Illingworth initially ruled in favour of the batter. But Bumrah told Gill, “Two sounds” and urged him to refer. Replays confirmed two spikes, with Campbell’s bat hitting the pads and turning inside simultaneously when the ball hit the edge.

The West Indies curiously used Brandon King, known more for his hard-hitting skills in white-ball cricket, to bat in the top four instead of more established names like captain Roston Chase and Shai Hope. While King did crack a couple of scorching boundaries, Siraj’s old faithful, the scrambled seam delivery, bowled on a good length and close to the off-stump, accounted for him as the batter shouldered arms.

Siraj started employing the scrambled seam option when he lost his inswinger in 2018, and while there were accusations of overusing that delivery, especially in the delayed fifth Test at Birmingham in 2022 vs England, Siraj has not put it away. Search Litton Das b Siraj, Chattogram 2022 on YouTube, and you know why he likes it so much. It foxes set batters as they are unsure which way the ball will move.

When hot under the collar, Hyderabad’s supercop can snarl and sledge, but now, with experience, he has acquired smartness. He used that to dismiss Alick Athanaze. Without letting his ego be pricked after being struck on the up through covers, Siraj, who bowled fuller on Thursday than usual, floated another one wide to induce another cover drive, but this time the batter edged it to KL Rahul at slip.


While Kuldeep Yadav, who played his first Test in over a year, produced the most theatrical moment of Day One, to dismiss Hope at the stroke of lunch with a delivery that had drift, dip, and turn to defeat the batter’s over-ambitious cover drive and castle him, Siraj produced the ball of the day after the break. Chase, who was looking solid all the while, was tempted to stab at one from Siraj as the bowler went wide of the crease creating an illusion of the ball coming in. However, it seamed away to take the edge.

Bumrah showed his skills with the old ball employing reverse swing to clean up the tail and become the fastest Indian to get to the landmark of 50 sticks in India as Gill and Co. enjoyed a bright start to their four-match Test season at home.

As the Indians came out to bat, they started cautiously and scored just 23 runs in 12 overs. However, post a 22 minute rainbreak, the tap got turned on and boundaries flowed from the willows of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal. Jaiswal fell for 36 while trying to cut Jayden Seales and Sai Sudharsan wasted a chance to seal the No.3 spot in home conditions trying to pull Chase and falling lbw.


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