ENG vs IND : Ajinkya Rahane Shares Interesting Anecdote Of Mohammed Siraj

Mohammed Siraj finished as the highest wicket-taker in the series with 23 scalps, having bowled a whopping 185.3 overs, which is also more than any other bowler. Mohammed Siraj efforts took him to a career-best 15th spot on the rankings. Mohammed Siraj previous best was 16th which he had reached in January this year.

23 wickets and Mohammed Siraj ended up as India’s highest wicket taker. It was only fitting that his teammates literally gave him a guard of honour. Mohammed Siraj was so much more than a cricketer. Mohammed Siraj was now the leader of the bowling pack. Good things indeed happen to good people and good men do come first in the end. Mohammed Siraj is proof. This team is proof and that’s our life lesson from this tour.

As the dust settles on the manic England tour, it is time to take stock of what Mohammed Siraj truly achieved in the course of the last two months and why it matters so much to us in India.The truth is, there is so much more to sport than winning or losing. That one team will win on a given day and one will lose despite its best effort is only a surface reality. What plays backstage, stuff that we don’t often see, may well at times convey the true significance of sport. T

The Oval Test was one such. On the face of it the Test match was one of the greatest ever in cricketing history. It marked the culmination of a fantastic summer for India and saw the coming to the fore of a new India. But backstage a lot many things were happening and Mohammed Siraj was at the centre of it all.

Mohammed Siraj has jumped 12 places to his career-best spot in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Test rankings for bowlers after his heroics at the Oval for the fifth match against England, which concluded his herculean effort over the course of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. Siraj’s five-wicket haul helped India come back from a seemingly hopeless situation to secure a six-wicket win over England and thus draw the five-Test series 2-2.

Prasidh Krishna also attained a career-best 59th position after he along with Mohammed Siraj became only the second India pair to take four or more wickets each in both innings of a Test, a feat earlier accomplished by spinners Bishan Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna against Australia in Delhi in 1969.

Just like the Indian cricketing fraternity, veteran India batter, Ajinkya Rahane, was highly impressed with what he saw from Mohammed Siraj on the tour of England. Especially in the matches when Jasprit Bumrah wasn’t a part of India’s playing XI, Siraj managed to take extra burden on himself and deliver. The pacer ended the 5-match series as the highest wicket-taker, with 23 scalps to his name. Siraj’s performance earned plenty of plaudits from Rahane, who also recalled an incident from a 2020-21 series.

The anger brings out the best in Mohammed Siraj-  Ajinkya Rahane

Star India batter Ajinkya Rahane has said that he admires how Mohammed Siraj always likes to bowl longer spells, revealing that during the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, when the former was the captain for four of five Tests, Siraj was angry at him for not introducing him earlier.

Siraj made his Test debut under Rahane during India’s iconic 2-1 series victory over Australia in 2020–21.

“What I like about Siraj is that he always likes to bowl longer spells. Even in the 2020-21 series, he was willing to do that with the same intensity. In Australia, when he was making his debut, he was angry because I had introduced him into the attack very late,” Rahane said while speaking on his YouTube channel. 

“He still has the anger inside him. This anger brings out the best in Mohammed Siraj. We saw in the England series. The aggression in his bowling and the intensity with which he bowls, he is always warmed up by the time he bowls his first ball,” Rahane said.