Mohammed Siraj is a massive fan of Cristiano Ronaldo. And therefore, by extension, of Portugal and Real Madrid, even though the Portuguese great has since taken his wares to Saudi Arabia. Such is the inspiration he draws from his ‘hero’ that the wallpaper on his cell phone is a photograph of Ronaldo, his back to the camera, right hand outstretched and the index finger shooting skywards, with the word ‘BELIEVE.’ inscribed overhead.
Because of his continued admiration for Real Madrid, the lion-hearted Hyderabadi had decided to give himself an early birthday present by making a trip to Spain later this week to soak in the Spanish giants locking horns with Real Sociedad at the Santiago Bernabeu next Sunday. Siraj turns 32 on March 13; he has had a long season entailing four Tests at home against West Indies and South Africa, six One-Day Internationals in Australia and at home against New Zealand, and a slew of matches for his home state in domestic cricket. Last month, he was named the captain of the Ranji Trophy team for the matches against Chhattisgarh and Mumbai, where he bowled a combined 61 overs. Siraj needed a break, to recharge and refresh before resuming training and preparation for the Indian Premier League, where he will turn up for Gujarat Titans, led by India’s Test and ODI skipper Shubman Gill.
Siraj has been pigeonholed as a longer format bowler, which is why while he has 45 Test appearances and 50 ODI caps, he had played only 16 Twenty20 Internationals between his debut in November 2017 and the tour of Sri Lanka in July 2024. It was after that Sri Lanka sojourn, which India swept 3-0, that preparations for the 2026 World Cup began in all seriousness. Gautam Gambhir, in his first days as the new head coach, worked out a blueprint for the future with skipper Suryakumar Yadav and chief selector Ajit Agarkar. That blueprint didn’t involve Siraj, much to the disappointment of the Hyderabadi who had started the previous World Cup in 2024, playing all three matches in New York before making way for left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav when the tournament moved entirely to the Caribbean from the Super Eights onwards.
It took Siraj a little while to reconcile to the fact that he was no longer in the T20I scheme of things. The wait for a call-up to the 20-over side spilled over from one series to another, from one month to the next, before he came to grips with the realisation that his time in the format had passed him by when it came to the country vs country battles. India started to place massive emphasis on multi-skilled players; there were a fair few specialist pacers in the mix, but Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh were indispensable and Harshit Rana was the preferred choice because of his ability to wield the long handle. Siraj, therefore, could only watch on balefully, ruing his luck but wishing his mates well.
That’s something which comes naturally to the affable, ever-smiling performer who has perennially had to perform under the massive shadow of Bumrah – backing his buddies. Even when he picked up 20 wickets in five Tests in Australia in 2024-25, he was deemed somewhat of a ‘failure’ because of Bumrah’s towering presence. It needed England, and last summer when he picked up 23 wickets in the five matches, culminating in a dramatic series-levelling victory at the Oval in the final Test, for Siraj to be hailed as the champion he is. Within the dressing room, he has always been popular and immensely respected for his never-say-die spirit and the heart of a warrior, and while that is what most team-sports representatives aspire for, it must have hurt at some level that he wasn’t the popular choice for celebration among the teeming masses that go by sheer numbers.
Unexpected call-up
Siraj had completed all the formalities required to travel to Madrid when, without warning, he got a call from Suryakumar, asking him to be ready to fly out to Mumbai to join the national team ahead of their World Cup opener against United States. In an unfortunate twist of fate, Harshit tweaked his right knee in the practice game against South Africa in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday night. The injury was serious enough to rule him out of the entire tournament. India didn’t have much time to summon a replacement but once it was obvious that Harshit was hors de combat, Siraj became the obvious contender to step in because of his spunk and his experience, even though he had been disassociated from the format at the top level for a year and a half.
Understandably, Siraj’s first reaction when his skipper called him was disbelief. “Surya bhai said, ‘Get ready, pack your bag, and come’. I said, ‘Surya bhai, don’t joke, because this is not going to happen.’ He said, ‘I’m telling you the truth — get ready’. As soon as he hung up, I got a call from (selector Pragyan) Ojha,” Siraj revealed guilelessly, still in disbelief. “So suddenly, I got shocking news. I came, played the match — everything was written. God is great.”
Siraj flew into Mumbai from Hyderabad by 3.00 p.m. on Friday, and didn’t allow the grass to grow under his feet. He had played against the semi-professionals from America a year and a half back in New York, but there were a few new faces, and, in any case, it would have been impossible for him to dig that deep into his memory bank to pick up cues from an isolated encounter. He therefore spent time with the video analyst, quickly going through the process of understanding what he would be confronted against. He wasn’t sure he’d play but he didn’t want to go in cold, so to say. Then, another door opener through an illness to Bumrah that kept him out of Saturday’s proceedings and just like that, Siraj lined up for the national anthem, singing with gusto as is his wont.
In his time away from the team, Siraj had seen his friends taking opposition bowling attacks apart with their fabulous aggression, so he must have been overcome with dismay when the US bowlers cut a swathe through the Indian top-order. If Siraj had expected a relatively ‘light’ welcome back, he was in for a rude shock. At 77 for six, he must have scrambled to get himself ready to go out and support his lone-ranger skipper, if the situation warranted. As it turned out, Siraj wasn’t required to bat. Axar Patel, Arshdeep and Varun Chakaravarthy did enough to ensure that No. 11 Siraj didn’t have to take guard. India had scrambled to 161 for nine, potentially enough but reliant heavily on early-over strikes.
Siraj came on to bowl the second over, and was immediately deposited over long-on, second ball, by Andries Gous for an 87-metre six. It was a stunning blow to a length delivery on the pads and Siraj had to immediately alter his length and his line. That paid off two balls later when Gous unerringly picked out Siraj’s fellow Hyderabadi Tilak Varma at forward point. In his next over, Siraj forced Saiteja Mukkmalla to find Varun at mid-wicket. A couple of minutes later, he went flying to his right, goalkeeper style, to try and pouch Sanjay Krishnamurthi at short third-man off Arshdeep, but the magnificent effort didn’t yield the desired result as the ball popped out of his hands. Within minutes of taking the field, Siraj had left his impression. It was as if he had never been away from T20Is, such was the seamlessness with which he slotted back into the fray. Not done yet for the night, Siraj produced the perfect yorker off the last ball of the match to trap the adventurous Shubham Ranjane in front and formalise a 29-run victory earned with far greater difficulty than India might have envisaged. Siraj finished with three for 29 from his four overs, his second-best T20I effort behind only four for 17 against New Zealand in Napier, three and a quarter years back. The slaps and the pats and the high-fives and the hugs from his mates showed how much they had missed his feel-good presence and how delighted they were that he would continue to light up the dugout for the next four weeks.
To say that Siraj bowled within himself on his reintegration will be no exaggeration. There would have been inevitable nerves, though the suddenness of the events of the hours leading into his return to play wouldn’t have given him much time to feel terribly nervous or heavily weighed down. His immediate aim was to bowl the red-ball, first-class lines that come so naturally to him. There was also the small matter of ensuring that the two points didn’t slip away, that India didn’t make the worst possible start to their title defence.
Now that both those boxes have been ticked, and now that Siraj is certain to spend more time at the nets with the white ball and to re-establish his bond with Bumrah, he will be more versatile and experimentative going forward. There is every possibility that despite three for 29, he will find himself on the bench at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi against Namibia on Thursday if Bumrah makes an expected full recovery because India must ease their No. 1 bowler back into action, ahead of the potentially stiffer challenges around. Should that be the case, Siraj will neither complain nor grumble because that is simply not the Siraj way. He will ferry drinks during the newly-introduced (at the international level) timeouts, with his million-dollar smile and pearls of wisdom in tow. He will rib his buddies, he will make them guffaw and chuckle, but he will also espouse his inputs because behind that simpleton exterior is an astute cricket brain that has netted him 232 international wickets.
It was written in the stars, perhaps, that Siraj must be a part of India’s title defence, however unkind a cut that might be for Harshit. But will that title defence itself materialise? If you ask Siraj, he will look at you with those earnest eyes and insist, softly, “Whatever God has written will happen.”
