Siraj steps up in Bumrah’s absence to lead India’s bowling with his six-for just reward for the pacer who led the attack well.
No Bumrah, no problem for India as Siraj steps up.
Throughout the third day of play at Edgbaston, a peculiar and intriguing statistic continued to accrue greater significance. Particularly when Mohammed Siraj’s double-strike in his first over of the day started to result in wickets with the second new ball.
These are the figures. Mohammed Siraj averages 33.82 in the 23 Test matches he has played with Jasprit Bumrah. After 15 games without Bumrah, his current average is 25.20. Siraj averages 34.96 in the nine Test matches he has played with Mohammed Shami. He averages 33.05 in the six Test matches he has played with both Bumrah and Shami. Siraj has an average of 22.27 in the 12 games he has played without Bumrah or Shami.
Siraj is a fine fast bowler with good control, a wobble-seam ball, a big heart, and an outswinger that occasionally goes missing. These are non-quirky facts. Although he has been bowling well since the Australia tour began, he hasn’t had much success getting wickets.
The sport of cricket is messy. Outside of that initial stint at Headingley when he laboured for three overs while racing uphill, Siraj bowled about as many nice balls at about the same pace as Bumrah and drew about the same number of poor shots, but he produced nothing.
The allure of this chaotic sport is that, just when everyone is anxious about Bumrah’s absence, Siraj enters the game, starts with two new balls as the second bowler after Akash Deep, bowls without altering his technique, and finishes with a six-for. He extracted significantly less seam, swung the ball as much as he did at Leeds, and his lengths didn’t get any shorter or more attacking.
His only alteration was to straighten his lines, which is something you can afford to do when the pitch is lower and slower. His channel deliveries dropped from 47.5% balls in the channel in Leeds to 42.9%. He increased his straight lines from 22.5% to 33.8%.
Siraj attacked the stumps the most, projected to hit them 28 times, even though he bowled the fewest overs of any fast bowler (not including Prasidh Krishna, who delivered a period full of bouncers). In those balls, he claimed three wickets. He took six wickets in just 26 false strokes. He scored two in 69 at Headingley. This is striking, yet control data may not be the most important thing.
Siraj is aware of it. He had to put up with these peculiarities of the game. After a series of unsuccessful Tests, he can continue to run with the same vigour because of this. During the second inning, he will follow suit. If he doesn’t obtain the same results, be patient.