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| The Warrior! |
In the last BGT in Australia, Siraj took 20-wickets. No one celebrates this; we think he flopped. He returned from that tour doubting himself. He couldn’t take wickets and his radar seemed broken => batters were feasting on him down the leg-side. His IPL was good not great (16-wickets, 15-games, #13 overall). He couldn’t recognize the man in the mirror. Was Siraj cooked?
Cooked or not, he arrived in England 2-months ago squarely as Bumrah’s sidekick. Things began well in that first test and there was a glimmer of hope. Sidekicks need their main man to succeed, and so it went with Bumrah—Siraj. Bumrah clicked, Siraj mirrored him, and they shared the spoils in the first innings. India set 371 for England to chase to win, an uphill battle for any team let alone against our locked-in bowling attack. Victory was within India’s grasp.
Sadly, that thing with sidekicks mirroring their main man came full circle in the 4th innings. The English astutely saw Bumrah off after which they pummeled Siraj and co. as they scaled the impossibly uphill 371, their second highest chase of all time. Bazball had put Indian fans on notice as our team went down 0–1.
Akashdeep overshadowed Siraj in the second test as we leveled the series at 1–1. Shubman Gill was the hero with the bat, our bowlers showed up sans Bumrah, the English caved on day-5, and Siraj showed signs of his 2021 self. Hope started to build again…
Sadly, this hope was extinguished on day-5 of the third test at Lord’s. At the cathedral of the game we love, the last wicket partnership of Jadeja and Siraj had brought India teasingly close to an epic win. And then, disaster struck off a benign, ordinary off-spinner’s delivery. The lasting image of England winning this hard-fought test featured two men prominently: To the right was a broken man, Siraj, staring at the pitch while another to his left, Bashir, was celebrating with a raised, broken finger. Exultation & anguish, raw emotion memorialized on a cricket pitch.
Would this image of a despondent Siraj after he watched a ball roll back on to the stumps & dislodge a bail be the one fans carried with them into the future? Siraj had to believe he would get a chance at redemption, but time was running out. 2–1 for England.
England batted just once in the fourth test. Our bowling unit was so lost that the English made their second highest score of all time in that one inning! It took India showing true grit to bat out the last 5-sessions to save the series and make the final test meaningful. At 2–1 we were still down but in with a chance to level the series. Next stop, The Oval in London.
Fast forward to the morning of August 3. After three days of bowlers finally dominating batsmen, England were set 374-runs to chase for all the glory. A result was guaranteed. Could India stop England and exorcise demons from the first test. Or would England chase this total down and be worthy winners of the trophy? 23-days of excruciating and spellbinding cricket had brought these 22-men to one final battle to decide who would win the war.
On this eventful day-4 with India just about getting their nose ahead, we arrived at yet another key moment. Harry Brook looked ominous on 19 when he top-edged a fiery ball from Prasidh Krishna. Siraj watched that ball all the way into his safe hands only to take a step back and touch the boundary. Not out and 6-runs to Brook. Siraj was crestfallen. Indian fans gasped in horror!
Was this error in judgment the final straw? Did Siraj just drop the trophy? Flashback to Gibbs dropping Steve Waugh in the 1999 WC semi-finals and Waugh’s subsequent comment, “You’ve dropped the World Cup, mate”. This Siraj drop seemed to suck all the energy out of the 11-Indians on the field, and the game slipped away from us. Before we knew it, England were 301 for 3 and the end was nigh!
And then, like a tease, hope sprung anew. Brook charged Prasidh, lost his bat after contact, and skied an easy chance to Siraj who finally held on without an error. Brook had scored 92-runs since Siraj’s costly error, and his blitzkrieg had flattened the Indian team. England ended the day needing 35-runs with 4-wickets remaining. WnViz gave them an 81% chance of winning. With our chances at a mere 19%, Indian fans, the media, everyone skewered Siraj; he was the cause of our woes; the tank of hope was empty!
Thank God that Siraj didn’t care. On Day-5, he channeled all this heartbreak and intense scrutiny into digging extremely deep to conjure the performance of a lifetime this morning. His 56-minute spell in tandem with Prasidh was a masterclass in seam, swing, line and length bowling with hostility. In a fitting gesture, the stadium erupted when he took the last English wicket by uprooting Atkinson’s off-stump with a swinging Yorker. We had won; Siraj & Prasidh had willed the team to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. Justice had been served for patience, perseverance, and hard practice, finally!
This was an epic series with many exclamation points. But nothing was more powerful than Siraj’s final flourish against all odds. His road to redemption has been long, winding, and painful, but he can stand tall and proud again. Bravo!
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