'When The IPL Season Went Bad For me...': Mohammed Siraj on What Led to His Success in White-ball Cricket

After having proven his credentials in Tests, Mohammed Siraj continues to polish his reputation in limited-overs cricket as well with the pacer playing a starring role with the ball in India’s record win over Sri Lanka in the 3rd ODI on Sunday. Siraj produced his career-best spell with a four-wicket haul that left Sri Lanka in tatters as they skittled for 73 in chase of 391 in Thiruvananthapuram.

The 28-year-old has time and again provided early breakthroughs for India putting opponents under pressure. However, there was a time when Siraj was regarded as a Test specialist considering his propensity to leak runs in white-ball cricket.

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It was after a disappointing IPL 2022 when he managed just nine wickets from 15 matches while leaking runs at 10.08 that Siraj began working on his bowling.

“When the IPL season went bad for me, I started focussing on white ball cricket. I worked on it and grew in confidence. I stopped worrying about how my performance would go which was not case earlier. I started focussing only on execution of line and length,” Siraj said after the match.

Siraj has been quite effective when bowling with a wobbled seam as its unpredictability works in his favour.

“With wobbled seam, how much the ball will do neither I know nor the batter. Sometimes it goes straight after pitching other times it can come in sharply. Most of my wickets come through wobbled seam. It is effective for me and I trust it to work for me,” Siraj said.

Siraj worked on his outswingers once inswing deserted him and it took some time before he could execute it effectively.

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“Inswing was my natural earlier but then it stopped so I also developed outswing. When I did not have the inswing, I developed the wobbled seam. It took a lot of time to get effective and give me confidence. The more I bowled in the nets, the better I got. In the IPL, I spoke to Dale Steyn as well for outswing which helped me a lot,” he said.

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