Mohammed Siraj woke up on the fifth morning at The Oval with a simple plan: fix yesterday’s error and, somehow, drag India over the line. England still needed only 35 more runs, India required four wickets. Three overs later, the target looked entirely different.
“I cannot describe my feelings,” Siraj said after taking the Player-of-the-Match award. “After yesterday’s incident, I thought the match was gone. Had we got Harry Brook out before lunch, things would have been different. There would have been no fifth day. That was a game-changing moment. But we came back strongly after that.”
Key facts first, then the finer grain: England fell six runs short; India squared the series at 2-2; Siraj finished with 3 for 24 on the day, 23 wickets for the series – the most by any bowler. And all this came 24 hours after he stepped on the boundary sponge, failed to hold Brook, and watched the Yorkshire batter convert the reprieve into a blistering hundred.
“When I woke up this morning, I told myself I would change the game. I opened Google, downloaded a ‘believe’ image and put that as my phone wallpaper.”
That belief turned practical soon enough. Second over of the day, Jamie Smith nicked behind. Next over, Jamie Overton fell lbw to one nipping back. When Prasidh Krishna rearranged Josh Tongue’s stumps, only Gus Atkinson remained with seven still needed. One meaty strike over wide long-on briefly unnerved the Indian cordon, but Siraj dug out a full-length yorker, clattered off stump, and the match was India’s.
“My only plan was to bowl consistently at one spot and to move the ball in and out from there. I didn’t want to try too much because that could have released the pressure. From day one to today, every Test went to the fifth day. So hats off to everyone in the squad for the way they fought.”
Siraj’s influence has stretched beyond the ball. At Lord’s, in a chase that required 23 with one wicket left, he blocked a delivery from Shoaib Bashir only for it to dribble back, dislodging a solitary bail and ending the match. That memory clearly lingers.
“It was a heartbreaking moment,” Siraj said. “Jaddu [Ravindra Jadeja] bhai was telling me not to overthink and focus on middling every ball. He told me to think about my father and how hard I have worked to get here. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”
There will be other chances, but few mornings quite like this one: a phone wallpaper, a short pep talk with himself and, by lunch, a Test match flipped on its head.
