Mohammed Siraj – The never give-up warrior

Mohammed Siraj doesn’t understand the meaning of fatigue. You give him the red cherry while playing for Indian whites, and he would run in all day for you. Doesn’t matter who the opposition is, doesn’t matter what the weather conditions are, doesn’t matter if it is a featherbed, doesn’t matter if he is bowling his umpteenth spell of the series. He would just run in with all his heart, and obviously brain too, and would try to give his soul to each and every ball he bowls. He bowls with conviction, like a man on mission and there is no negative bone in his body. 

He would stare in the eyes of the best batters in the world and tell them he is ready for the dogfight. That he would never back down, he hasn’t learned that, he doesn’t have that in his dictionary. He could be that stubborn boxer, who could be taking all the blows in a fight but he would never raise a white flag. He is a competitor, a warrior, who would always refuse to lose. 

Siraj bowled a total of 185.3 overs (highest in the series) in the historic Anderson-Tendulkar series, which ended fittingly in a 2-2 draw. That’s 1113 deliveries during the gruelling five-match series and boy, didn’t he give his everything in each spell he bowled. Siraj is someone who wears his heart on his sleeve and said when you play for your country, you give your everything, irrespective of how tired you are. Period. 

“To be honest, my body is fine right now, because there have been almost 187 overs in this series. But you play for your country, and you give your everything, and then you don’t think about whether you bowled six overs or nine overs. I believe that I bowl every ball for the country and not for myself. You play for the country and give your everything; the rest is not in your control,” Siraj said in the post-match press conference on Monday.

Siraj ended the series as the leading wicket-getter with 23 scalps at an average of 32.43 and strike rate of 48.39. A bowling average of more than 30 is not considered that great but sometimes, contrary to a famous adage, numbers do lie.

Siraj bowled 47 spells in this series, and not one of them was slower than 131 kp/h. He was giving every ounce of his energy to the team, with whatever fuel he had left in his tank. Like a F1 driver, who is always looking to put a pedal to the metal. The pacer from Hyderabad was always pushing the limits and he was consistent like a tide. 

Furthermore, according to CricViz, the 31-year-old drew a false shot 283 times this series – no Indian seamer has ever drawn more since records began. Ergo, he could have had better numbers if he had some rub of the green on his side and then the numbers wouldn’t have lied.

Pitches in the first four Test matches were a paradise for the batters, but Siraj was always pushing the envelope.

Meanwhile, Siraj often does a ‘Siu’ celebration after taking a wicket, and copies his idol Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese superstar once again inspired Siraj on Monday morning.

After waking up early at 6 o’clock in the morning, Siraj googled ‘BELIEVE’ and he came across a picture of Cristiano Ronaldo in the Manchester United colours. With only 35 runs left in the bank, and England still having four wickets intact, not many believed that India would snatch a win from the jaws of defeat.

However, Siraj was up for it and once again did what he does best. He bowled in the corridor of uncertainty and let the old ball and English weather do the rest. And finally, the weather was India’s friend this time. Gloomy, a bit of drizzle, and Siraj was just unplayable. Every ball he bowled, meant business.

He accounted for Jamie Smith with an outswinger, plumbed Jamie Overton with an inswinger, and then bowled a perfect yorker to Gus Atkinson, for which his teammate Jasprit Bumrah would be proud and out came the Siu. That was it. India won by six runs, their narrowest win in Test cricket history, to level the series. 

Test cricket is absolute cinema; it is the biggest theatre in the cricket world, especially for the purists. And Mohammed Siraj was India’s hero at the Kennington Oval on Monday morning, which would be written in India’s Test folklore, for eternity. 

It is now time for Siraj to put his feet up, get a massage, enjoy this contentment before once again doing what he does best, bowl fast and accurate.