Fast bowler Mohammed Siraj on Sunday starred with a four-wicket haul as India bundled out England for 284, taking a healthy lead of 132 in the second innings of the ongoing Edgbaston Test. The right-arm quick picked the prized wicket of former captain Joe Root and then wiped out the England tail, comprising Sam Billings, Stuart Broad and Matthew Potts.
Siraj’s heroics with the ball on Day 3 has certainly taken India a step closer to a historic Test series win against England. Meanwhile, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Director of Cricket Mike Hesson lauded the speedster from Hyderabad.
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Speaking with the franchise, Hesson cited ‘solid fundamentals’ as the reason for pacer Siraj’s incisive bowling in the rescheduled fifth Test.
“For me, Siraj had a good change of pace and a really good skillset for white-ball cricket but he had solid fundamentals behind him. You need your base skills; I think that’s where first-class cricket and Test cricket come in. He has bowled a lot of overs, so it showed that he’s fit,” said Hesson on royalchallengers.com.
Siraj was among three players retained by RCB, along with Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell, ahead of the IPL mega auction earlier this year.
“He (Siraj) had a repeatable action, so I knew what I was going to get day in and day out. And as a coach, that’s so important. He didn’t need to have his timing right for his action to work on the day and for the ball to come out right. He’d done the work in first-class cricket, he’s now doing the work in Test cricket,” added Hesson.
Siraj has been exceptional in the longest format of the game ever since he came up against the Australians in the Test series Down Under.
“If there was one format he was going to do well at the start of his international career, it was probably Test cricket. I think the meeting that Simon (Katich), myself and Virat (Kohli) had initially, where we were talking about players, Virat was really confident about Siraj and had confidence in him at the death. And on different grounds at different times, he felt Siraj had the skillset that would still give him success,” opined Hesson.
(With Agency Inputs)
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