In the bylanes of the Old City in Hyderabad, a young Mohammed Siraj would hone his cricket skills with tremendous determination. His father was an auto-rickshaw driver and life for the family was difficult. However, his determination would just carry him forward. What followed was a meteoric rise in the domestic circle for Mohammed Siraj. He became the leading wicket-taker for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy in 2016/17 season, ending with 41 wickets. That performance in the Ranji Trophy catapulted him to an IPL 2017 auction where he was brought for Rs 2.6 crore by Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The son of an autorickshaw driver was now on the fast lane to success. Under the mentorship of Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and VVS Laxman, Mohammed Siraj took his baby steps to bowling superstardom but it did not materialise. In 2017/18, Mohammed Siraj topped the bowling charts with 23 wickets in seven games in the Vijay Hazare Trophy after being released by Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2018. The exploits in the Vijay Hazare Trophy helped find a new home and that was Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore.
In the last two seasons, Siraj was not economical and he leaked runs frequently. He was the subject of intense trolling by social media ‘experts’ who doubted his skills. With Royal Challengers Bangalore also not performing, the criticism and trolling only increased. In IPL 2020, he did not make a good start in the first couple of games. Importantly, though, he had the backing of the right person. He had the backing of Virat Kohli.
Dream spell
In the game against Kolkata Knight Riders, Mohammed Siraj delivered the spell of the ages that silenced all the years of criticism in one blow. Siraj became the first bowler in IPL history to bowl two maiden overs and he ended with figures of 4-2-8-3, with his wickets being Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana and Tom Banton. Thanks to his historic spell, Kolkata Knight Riders managed the lowest total in history after completing 20 overs while their fifty was the joint-slowest with Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2009 when they took 17 overs to get there.
In the post-match press conference, Virat Kohli said the performance of Mohammed Siraj showed his mental strength. “Last year he had a tough year. Lot of people went quite hard at him. This time around he worked hard, he was really determined. He's seeing the result now and we want him to continue,” Kohli said.
In 2017, during an interaction with The Hindu, Mohammed Siraj had made plans to move into a new spacious residential complex from the narrow by-lanes of First Lancer near Mehdipatnam. “Hopefully, I can see my family members in a comfort zone soon,” Mohammed Siraj had remarked at that time. Now, in Abu Dhabi, his journey of redemption has begun.
