Siraj collected three wickets in his first two overs without conceding a run. © BCCI
At IPL 2019, when Kolkata Knight Riders met Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mohammed Siraj had to live one of his loneliest nights on the field. The visitors were chasing 205 and were in a good position when Siraj dropped an assistant on the sweeper’s covering fence to give Chris Lynn a break. Virat Kohli, in the long distance, had already started his celebration when he saw the catch go down.
With the hat on his face and the expletives in his mouth, the RCB captain made no attempt to hide his disappointment. At the same time, as Kohli tried to swap fielders, Siraj found himself staring at the ground. When some fans tried to get Siraj to look at Kohli, he shrugged hoping for more boos to come to him. It was a nightmare for RCB, but probably even worse for Siraj. His 2.2 overs were hammered over 36 runs before he was removed from attack for throwing two projectors in the game. KKR sealed a win from behind as they chased the total with five balls to spare with Russell going 48 of 13.
“The routine never stops,” read a post by Siraj on Instagram a few days later, when he was subjected to more online trolling. On Wednesday (October 21), Siraj had his best night at IPL against the same opposition. Not only did he shrug off the battle scars left by the last match, he buried KKR four overs into the game. The pacemaker went 4-2-8-3 when he became the first pitcher to throw two maiden overs in a game in tournament history.
Once Chris Morris found his swing in his opening, Siraj stepped in to throw the second over. In his third installment, he got the long ball to curve away from Rahul Tripathi. The starter opened the face of the bat and gave AB de Villiers an easy catch behind the stumps. KKR No. 3 Nitish Rana has shown a tendency to fall to the short ball. However, Siraj decided to stick to the plans the expert group gave him. The fourth installment swung left-handed, bit down just a bit, and pulled out the stump to leave Rana and KKR shaken. The third wicket also had the batter chasing and trying to cover the swing away. In length, the ball left Tom Banton long enough to take the outer edge.
At 14 of 4 in four overs, KKR had no chance to come back. “I didn’t think there would be much swing when I looked at the wicket,” Siraj said after the game. “I had been practicing with the new ball in practice sessions and when I got the new ball, that also gave me confidence. My natural swing is towards the batter, but when my ball started in practice sessions, I didn’t. Think about it. a lot on it. ”I went with the flow instead of thinking about why my inswing wasn’t coming out correctly.
“In our practice sessions, we have Devdutt Padikkal and Parthiv Patel. I shot the same pitch as me with Nitish Rana. I did the same in game and was able to execute well.”
Even RCB’s Cricket Director Mike Hesson didn’t think the decision to open the bowling alley with Siraj would bring them such beautiful rewards. “We saw the last two games that the ball was swinging and we thought Siraj was a good fit,” he said during the first innings. “Once the ball swung we knew Siraj was going to be our choice. It was something we wanted to do on the fly. We know he has a great position in the seam and if he hits good distances, he’s always in the game. We thought. If you find your length here, there’s a little shade of green, you can get us one or two. I never thought I’d get three. ”
It was about keeping things simple overnight for Siraj. He is not the most consistent bowler when it comes to cue ball cricket and has often been found wanting in pressure situations. With a change in the settings, the results also changed. The new ball did quite a bit and with hitters not looking to attack it, he was able to take on the new challenge thrown at him.
Siraj, despite his performance against KKR, is not the most polished limited-limit pacemaker in India. His IPL record – 34 wickets from 30 games at an economy of 9.02 prior to this game – leaves a lot to be desired. Adding in the fact that he has often seen the weak link, between Chris Morris, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar, it means that he carries the additional burden on his shoulder.
However, with tremendous performance in the bag, it is crucial that Siraj uses the confidence to find the consistency to deliver under pressure. But for the moment, he has earned the right to celebrate the “magic performance” he has been craving for the past three seasons. “I’ve always had a lot of support from the RCB setup. All I wanted to do this year was give a magical performance. I wanted to do something different this year. Whenever I thought about my performance at IPL 2020 (before the tournament), I had decided that I would offer a performance to remember. ”
© Cricbuzz
