Mohammed Siraj bowls with heart, fire and finally some luck to end second-fiddle perception in Jasprit Bumrah absence

When the rewards finally came at Edgbaston on Friday, Mohammed Siraj would have been equal parts elated and relieved.

‘Well bowled, bad luck’ is one of the worst compliments a bowler can receive. Every bowler loves to bowl well, but he’d rather take a bushel of wickets not bowling well than the other way round.

Mohammed Siraj claimed a six-fer against England in the first innings at Edgbaston.(Action Images via Reuters)

For a long time, Mohammed Siraj must have been wondering what he needed to do to turn his ‘bad luck’ around. From the time of his debut in Melbourne in December 2020 (not longer after his father passed away in Hyderabad and he couldn’t make the trip back home owing to Covid-19 restrictions that would have prevented him from rejoining the team), Siraj has been nothing if not all heart. Whether with the ball or in the field, he gives it his all. That hasn’t always translated to success in the manner in which it is measured – numbers in the wickets column, or runs saved in the outfield. But, and pardon the poor pun, Siraj has never lost heart.

When the rewards finally came at Edgbaston on Friday, the 31-year-old would have been equal parts elated and relieved. Elated that he stepped up to the plate when the team required him the most, in Jasprit Bumrah’s absence, and relieved that finally, for all his commitment and fire and passion, there was something to show.

Before the third day of the second Test, Siraj’s last five-fer in Tests was in January last year, on a spiteful Newlands surface when he sent South Africa crashing to 55 all out on the first morning. He took six for 15 to Bumrah’s two for 25. That first-session jaw-dropper set up India’s series-levelling seven-wicket victory. Siraj will be hoping Friday’s six for 70, a splendid effort with both new balls, will catalyse a similar denouement.

Over the years, it has become fashionable to run Siraj down. He averages a perfectly respectable 30.71 from 38 Tests, his strike-rate isn’t shabby at 52.4 balls per wicket. Just to put things in perspective, the highly rated Mohammed Shami’s average is 27.7 and his strike-rate is 50.3. Siraj doesn’t suffer much by comparison, but perception is a strange beast in Indian cricket, which is why the larger ecosystem was quick to label the Indian bowling in Australia over the winter a one-man army.

True, Bumrah towered over everyone else – teammate and opponent alike – but Siraj bowled more overs than everyone except Pat Cummins, and took more wickets than only Bumrah, Cummins and Scott Boland, also the only three who took wickets quicker than him. His tally of 20 sticks was just one behind Boland and he had better returns than Mitchell Starc, but all that was overshadowed by the genius of Bumrah.

Mohammed Siraj shuts his critics but the job is not done yet

Siraj will be the first to admit he could and should have done more. He must have been troubled by the lack of wickets – he admitted in Australia that Bumrah played a key role in settling his anxiety, reminding him of the need to focus on what he needed to do rather than worry about what the outcome would be – especially because even former colleagues were questioning his place in the scheme of things. He can now allow himself a little pat on the back, but only a little one, because he knows that there is plenty of work ahead of him in this Test, and going forward.

Siraj might have seen a bit of himself in his beleaguered mate Prasidh Krishna on Friday. The Karnataka pacer leaked runs by the dozen in his first spell – 50 in five overs – as India embarked on a flawed short-ball mode of attack against Jamie Smith. It wasn’t of his own volition that Prasidh was banging the ball into his own half of the pitch. Shubman Gill had three men patrolling the leg-side boundary and a fourth halfway to the fence, hoping to trap the England wicketkeeper on the pull. Smith had an answer to every Prasidh bouncer on a slowish, unresponsive track where the ball hardly rose above the waist. When he did bowl a more conventional length after lunch, Prasidh beat the bat numerous times but by then, the damage had been done, his reputation as a free leaker of boundaries having grown manifold.

“Somebody in the team had to do it,” Prasidh said last week in Leeds, where also he was the designated bouncer enforcer. “I can’t sit back and say, ‘I want to look at my numbers, what my economy is’.” Prasidh was the odd wicketless man out at Edgbaston as Siraj and Akash Deep shared all ten wickets. Knowing Siraj, he would already have told his pace buddy that the latter’s time will come, soon. After all, there is a reason why the Hyderabadi goes by jigra.