After Lord’s heartbreak, pacer Md Siraj vows to work on his batting

For Mohammed Siraj, the visuals of the ball rolling onto the stumps and dislodging the bails at Lord’s, continued to haunt him for a long time. With India needing another 22 for victory, and a 2-1 series lead within sight, Siraj was left in tears after Shoaib Bashir’s delivery knocked him off, and sealed England’s victory.

Amid the celebrations, a few jubilant home players rushed to console the Indian quick, down on his haunches. It was a poignant moment, similar to Brett Lee’s heartbreak at Edgbaston some years back.

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As the dust settled over the Lord’s defeat, and the focus shifts to the crucial fourth game at Manchester, starting Wednesday, Siraj said it was a heartbreaking moment for him as he felt he could have done the job for India that day.

“Obviously, I was very sad. In that kind of match, to get out after middling, like I had a partnership with Jaddu bhai, I felt like I won’t get out. The way I was batting, I had that confidence that I can’t get out here. Whatever happens, it will be my own mistake. But unfortunately, even after middling, I got out. It was very heartbreaking. Because if we had won that match, the result would’ve been totally different,” said Siraj.

The 31-year-old said the pain of the loss stayed with him for a while. Crediting the fight shown by Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah on the day, Siraj said it motivated him even as he feels that the series is still very much alive and vowed to come back with renewed focus on his batting.

“It stayed for a long time. Because the match was like that. In 2021 too, I took the last wicket. Then again, to be in that situation, I’m a very emotional person. Because in such a situation when I got out, I mean, if we had won, the series would be 2-1.”

“But at that time, Jaddu bhai fought so well, even Jassi bhai played 54 balls. Such a fight but in the end, it was a loss. After so much hard work, I thought, no, the series isn’t over yet, it’s still 2-1.

“That gave me a boost that I’ll do even better and focus on my batting. Because when we go overseas, runs from tailenders are very important. Even when we went to Australia the last two times, we always thought that as much as possible, we should make runs from the bottom. So since then we are working hard on our batting,” he acknowledged.

The Lord’s Test seemed to kick fire into the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series with Zak Crawley and Shubman Gill involved in a war of words on Day 3. What followed was an extremely aggressive Siraj who kept sledging the England batters in hopes of throwing them off their game.

Siraj spoke on his mindset when involved in such heated moments. “There are no plans regarding this. When you are bowling, you are in another zone; your focus is on taking wickets, so you don’t know what you say. You want to divert the batter, like when I asked Root, ‘Where is the Bazball?’”

When asked if he is going to continue his aggressive approach, Siraj replied with a simple but effective “yes”.