In a gruelling India-England Test series, where all five matches went to the final day, Mohammed Siraj finished with 23 wickets, leading India to level the series. In this session, moderated by Deputy Associate Editor Devendra Pandey, he reflects on key moments from the tour and the need to stay level-headed.
Devendra Pandey: Every player dreams of starring in an iconic series. We saw Cheteshwar Pujara in Australia in the past. This England tour will be known as Siraj’s series.
When I landed in England, my aim was to become the highest wicket taker there. That was my zone. During the whole series, I was mentally strong — I wanted to be 100 per cent fit, 100 per cent available, and play all five matches. My rhythm was also very good when I played the practice matches. When I found out that Jassi bhai (Jasprit Bumrah) was not going to play all the matches, since I was the second senior fast bowler in the team, I wanted to give my 100 per cent.
When we played the last series in Australia in 2024, I took 20 wickets. But Jassi bhai’s performance was extraordinary. I played well in the IPL. That gave me confidence. After the Champions Trophy, I had a good break. I realised what was wrong with my bowling. I practised and worked on my fitness.
Devendra Pandey: I heard that you were given a choice to sit out of the fifth Test and you said no. Did you think through that decision, considering you must have been very tired?
Shubman (Gill) asked me, ‘Kaisi hai teri body?’ (How is your body?). I said, ‘Ekdum (absolutely) first-class’. He asked me if I would play. I said yes. He said, you are the main bowler for us, like Jasprit Bumrah, you decide. I said I’m available and am 100 per cent fit. I will give it everything.
As for my body being tired, to be honest, I would have played one more Test if it was there. I didn’t feel tired. But I was in a zone. When you enter that zone, you don’t know what you are doing, but just have that feeling that I have to do something here.
ALSO READ | Mohammed Siraj to The Indian Express: ‘Would’ve played one more Test in England, if it was there’
Devendra Pandey: What was going through your mind on the last morning of the final Test, when you bowled India to a series-levelling win? Did it feel like a dream?
It was a script written for me from somewhere up there. From getting bowled in Lords (the Test that India lost), then reaching Oval. Then I took a catch (of Harry Brook) and touched the boundary. Everything was written for me. It was a script from God. When I woke up on that final morning, they needed 35 runs. I told myself that this game wouldn’t go beyond an hour and that I will win this match.
Match was to start at 11 am and the team bus would leave by 9 am. I woke up at 6 am! I asked myself, ‘Why did I wake up so early today?’ I had woken up suddenly. After that, I wrote down, ‘I can do this, win the game’. When the ball came out of my hand, the execution was exactly how I was thinking; it’s a good sign. God had written, ‘Ja hero ban ja tu, become a hero’.
On being aggressive | Aggression is very important. If a batsman hits you and you are relaxed and smile… What kind of cricket is that? Kuch toh chahiye (You need some aggression). But off the field, I am ek dum chill (really chill)
Story continues below this ad
Sandeep Dwivedi: You’ve spoken about that sad moment of getting bowled in that bizarre fashion at Lord’s — when India lost after you and Ravindra Jadeja had nearly won the match. Have you been able to make peace with it?
It is still shocking to me. I don’t know how it happened. If you see carefully, while the ball is travelling towards the stumps, a small pebble comes in the way and the ball bounces up off it, reaches the stumps to just about hit and a bail drops. That moment keeps popping on Insta reels. When I see those reels, I get emotional. We had almost lost that match, but we were back in the Test. I was feeling so comfortable, there was no way I felt I could get out. I got hit by a ball from Jofra Archer, but I was fine and felt I was not going to get out. However, the almighty had some other plans.
Sandeep Dwivedi: During your early days of struggle in Hyderabad, you once told your mother not to worry about your future. You said, ‘Ek din aisa aayenga ki paise rakhne ki jagah nahi rahegi aapke paas’ (a day will come when there will be so much money that you would not have a place to store it). How were you so confident about yourself?
I remember that day — I was getting a sound beating from my mother when I said that. As usual, I was playing cricket and my mother didn’t like it. She said, I don’t worry about my future. That’s when I asked her to stop beating me and that I would earn so much money one day that there wouldn’t be any place in the house to keep it. I told her, ‘You don’t worry, I will do it.’
It is said that of all the things one says during a day, one of those things comes true. So that day what I said was accepted by the almighty. Confidence is very important if you want to play top-flight cricket. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, you can’t do anything in life. Only if you have belief, will you achieve the goal you have set for yourself. If you believe that I can bowl a yorker and I will get a wicket, you will succeed. Only if you visualise in your mind, think that if I bowl like this I will get a wicket, you will get a certain confidence to execute it. You also need to train for that. If you train hard, you will be able to execute in the match.
Sandeep Dwivedi: At times, those with humble beginnings get overawed by sudden fame and change. What about you?
Keeping in mind where I come from and where I have reached, I just don’t like attitude and arrogance. I make an effort to stay down- to-earth. I have the same set of friends that I used to have back in the day. I still hang around with them. It’s not that now I have become an India player, so I would make new friends and will move around in a Range Rover with them. I do have a Range Rover and I drive around, but I still go to places where I played tennis ball cricket with my old friends as a child. I chill with them and stay the same as I always was. I don’t make them feel uncomfortable. I will have tea in the same cup as them. We fool around and laugh the way we used to when I wasn’t an international cricketer. I tell them not to give me any special treatment and that we are equals, just like it used to be. These days, people do a lot of things once they become successful. My aim is to always remain grounded. I am also aware that there will be times I will do well, but success can also disappear. That means, again, I will work hard and again I will succeed.
Sandeep Dwivedi: You are comfortable in the company of foreign cricketers as well. At the end of the England tour, batting great Joe Root said that Siraj is such a nice guy that it is very tough for him to get angry about something and ‘sometimes it seems he fakes his anger’.
(Laughs) No, no I do get angry and it does not fade off quickly. Only after I get a wicket, my anger vanishes. As for Joe Root, he is a world class batsman. When he is facing me, he never looks at me with any kind of anger. He keeps smiling at me. So whenever I see him, automatically a smile comes to my face. He is the first person seeing whom I become calm and smile. So during the England tour I decided I am not going to look at him or talk to him. Even if he was at the non-striker’s end and I was fielding at mid-off, he would come to talk to me but I would not talk to him. I would just walk away somewhere else (laughs).
ALSO READ | ‘If Root came to me, I would just walk away’: Siraj reveals why he did not talk, or even look, at Joe Root in England
Nihal Koshie: Hyderabad has produced batsmen like Mohammad Azharuddin and ML Jaisimha and a few spinners. What made you take up fast bowling?
To be honest, I never dreamt of playing for India. I didn’t have money, nor did I have any support because dad used to drive an auto. My mother used to work too. I used to give most of what I earned from tennis-ball cricket to my parents. Slowly my pace increased, I started doing well and played a district-level tennis-ball tournament. I had never played with the leather ball till then. Once I was playing a tournament in Vijay Anand (cricket ground) and I did well. The owner of Charminar Cricket Club was watching and asked me, ‘Will you join my club?’. I told him I had financial problems. He said, ‘Tension mat le (don’t worry), we will provide everything for you’. I said, ‘I will think about it and let you know’. We used to stay in a rented house.
On feeling the pressure in the Asia Cup India-Pak match | Yes, I felt the pressure of watching. When you are representing the country, the match gets over and you return to the dressing room, you can’t even celebrate the win… but you have to follow the government rules
Story continues below this ad
There are 1.4 billion people in the country… How will I play for the country? Rehta hai na neeche wale ki soch (people who are poor, think small). Then I told him (Charminar club owner) that I would play. I wore spikes for the first time. I began making a name for myself and people started discussing that there is one Mohammed Siraj and he bowls very fast. I started gaining confidence and felt I had the ability. Everything happened at the right time. When I was a net bowler before a RCB (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) versus SRH (Sunrisers Hyderabad) match in Hyderabad, I bowled to Virat (bhai) and KL (Rahul) bhai. (Bharat) Arun sir (India bowling coach) was also there. He was also surprised, wondering who this chap was. Next year I was not selected for Ranji Trophy, but Bharat Arun sir had become the Hyderabad coach. He asked, ‘I had seen this kid, but where is he now?’. Then Arun sir got me into the team and I became the highest wicket taker in Ranji Trophy that year. Upar wale ne saath diya, meri mehnat thi, meri maa-baap ki dua thi (God helped, I worked hard and had the blessing of my parents).
Nihal Koshie: Hyderabadis are usually a little laid back. You are aggressive on the field and after Virat Kohli you are the most expressive Indian player. How are you off the field?
Off the field, I am very different… shaant (calm), relaxed, chilled banda. But on the field, when you are representing the country… when I am hit for even one four, I get very angry. How did this batsman hit me? So I tend to fight.
Aggression as a fast bowler, I learnt from Dale Steyn, who I used to follow. Aggression is very important. If a batsman hits you and you are relaxed and smile… What kind of cricket is that? Kuch toh chahiye (You need some aggression). But off the field, I am ek dum chill
(really chill).
On public opinion | When you perform, the fans and the world will be with you and say ‘there is no bowler like Siraj’. In the next game, if you don’t, they will say, ‘Arre, what sort of bowler is this. jaake apne baap ke saath auto chalao’. what’s the point of this?
Story continues below this ad
Sriram Veera: When things didn’t go your way during IPL once, you were heavily trolled. In an interview that time, you’d said, ‘Mujhe tum logon ka praise nahi chahiye’ (I don’t want praise from all of you). Where did you get that strength?
I remember when I joined the India team, MS Dhoni had told me, ‘Kisi ki baaton mein nahin aana. Jab tu acha karega, toh poori duniya tumhare saath rahegi, aur jab kharaab karega, yahi duniya tujhe gaali degi.’ (Don’t pay attention to what others say. When you are performing well, the entire world will be with you, and when you aren’t, they will abuse you).
Yes, the trolling was bad. When you perform, the fans and the world will be with you and say ‘there is no bowler like Siraj’. In the next game, if you don’t perform, they will say, ‘Arre, what sort of bowler is this. Jaake apne baap ke saath auto chalao’ (go and ride the auto with your father) — what’s the point of this? You are hero in one match and zero in another (smiles). People change that quickly? I decided that I don’t need outside opinion and validation. What my teammates and family think of me is important, people who matter. I don’t care what
others think.
Sriram Veera: When Jasprit Bumrah didn’t play the final Test in the England series, many trolled him, saying he shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose.
Bumrah bhai doesn’t worry about outside opinion. He had a serious back injury and a big surgery. Had he bowled in that match, one can’t say whether he would have bowled again or not, if he had broken down. It’s that serious. That injury is very sensitive. His bowling action is very difficult. He is such a important bowler for India and his availability is so important — from Asia Cup to next year’s World Cup and so on.
Indian fans should understand that he is the backbone of the team and be rest assured that whenever possible, he will definitely play. Jassi bhai took the perfect decision.
Mihir Vasavda: There are many theories about injuries of fast bowlers. Andy Roberts has said they spend a lot of time in the gym and don’t bowl enough in the nets, which causes injuries. How does it work for you?
Earlier, I thought all this comes naturally and if I went to the gym, I’d get injured. In 2018, I met Soham bhai (Desai, India strength and conditioning coach). He said that gym is very important as a fast bowler and guided me on what to do and when to do, managing my workload. He also explained that I have to take protein; he told me that ‘when you are bowling, when your body is tired, you should take BCAA (Branched Chain Amino Acids). When you sleep, you should take magnesium, which will help you recover. The next day, you will be able to do the same things. If you don’t do this, your body will be fatigued, you will be prone to injuries’.
My training routine is the same otherwise. I do the same things that I did in 2018. If I change my training, I feel that something will happen to my body.
Tushar Bhaduri: You were not picked for the ICC Champions Trophy (50-over format) as well as the Asia Cup (T20 format). Are you being considered just a Test specialist?
I’m 200 per cent confident of doing well in all three formats when given a chance.
We played the Champions Trophy in Dubai, there was heat, and we needed more spinners there, that’s why I wasn’t picked. Rohit (Sharma) bhai told me that most of the bowling would be done by spinners and he didn’t want me to go there and just sit on the bench. He told me to spend time with family, practise and work on my fitness.
The Asia Cup was right after we had returned from the five Tests in England, so it was an opportunity to rest a bit.
Mihir Vasavda: You must have watched India play Pakistan. Watching from a distance, did you feel the pressure the players must have felt in the dressing room at the Asia Cup?
Yes, 100 per cent I felt the pressure (of watching India vs Pakistan). When you are representing the country, the match gets over and you return to the dressing room, you can’t even celebrate the win… There is a lot of pressure, but you have to follow the government rules.
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
