Mohammed and Siraj: One of a kind

"Jo aggression uski aankon mei hota hai, kabhi kabhi hum log bhi ghar pe shock ho jate hain" (Sometimes, we at home are shocked by the aggression in his eyes).

Mohammed Ismail is spontaneous in speaking about his brother but he's also quick to remind that the Mohammed Siraj we see on field is very different from the one off it. "Whenever he hears Arabi Marfa on the streets, he automatically starts dancing. Doesn't matter who's getting married!"

On the field, Siraj can just "switch it on" in Mike Hesson's words. He can get under the skin of the batter, outwit him, and celebrate in his face with arms flying wide. Sometimes, he also shushes his haters but the eyes bulge out without fail, as if to suggest disbelief at what he has just done. That, though, is hardly what people around him feel. Not in the least Virat Kohli, his captain at length in the Indian and RCB dressing room, and who knows a thing or two about him.

Which is why Kohli "wasn't surprised at all" by what he witnessed at Lord's last year. Neither the match haul of 8-126 against England nor the big eyes that have come to mark out Siraj. Ollie Robinson might remember the look too well. "This is exactly who he is," Kohli had said after India's 151-run win in the second Test. "He's going to be the kind of bowler who is aggressive, who is in your face and who is looking to get guys out. He is not scared and he is not going to take a backward step."

While Siraj has always been aggressive - as kids, Ismail hated batting against Siraj who would bowl at the ribs every time he was hit for a boundary - the spike in his playful aggression, on-field romps and even his success for that matter have, Ismail says, come on the heels of a personal tragedy.

"He always had that junoon... matlab pagalpan (meaning madness) but the Siraj of now is very different from the Siraj of before."

How?

"Mentally. Ye pehle aisa nahi thha (He wasn't like this before). He's tough mentally and physically now. What he went through in Australia... losing his father when he was stuck in a room during quarantine and couldn't meet anyone else... to tackle such a tough situation on your own is a big deal. And the way he's been performing after that, he's certainly grown mentally stronger.

"He says that the only thing that's on his mind now is what our father always told him, to make his country proud and give his 100 percent every time."

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India's tour of England in 2021 played a large part in the making of Siraj. If his performances in Australia were indicative of his potential, his contribution to India's 2-1 lead in England proved that he could do it in India's first-choice squad. And that being flanked by the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami was only a good thing.

No wonder Siraj now makes it to India's XI ahead of Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav. The signs were there in England last summer when Siraj was the perfect first-change bowler. He could bowl from over the wicket and swing the ball away from left-handers, which Sam Curran and Moeen Ali found out the hard way at Lord's. If needed, he could amp it up with short balls from round the wicket, as Jonny Bairstow would swear by. You could even trust him with crucial breakthroughs when Bumrah and Shami were cooling off their heels. His wicket of Jos Buttler in the closing few minutes of play at Lord's and the celebration that followed speak for themselves.

A lot of Siraj's success is down to mindset, for he's always had the skills; Kohli was the first to point that out after the Lord's victory. In fact, Siraj's red-ball skills were what piqued RCB's interest in him, interestingly at a time when he was in the middle of a pretty rough induction at the IPL.

"If there was one format he was going to do well at the start of his international career, it was probably Test cricket," says Hesson, RCB's Director of Cricket Operations, who took up the role in 2019. "I think the meeting that Simon (Katich), myself and Virat 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.

"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. He 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."

What attracted Kohli and Hesson to Siraj wasn't just his repertoire of workable skills but also the attitude he carried.

"He's always the guy who wants to bowl. As a captain, you genuinely want to throw the ball to someone who is saying 'give it to me'. He's that type of character.

"When we took over, the easiest thing was for Siraj to say 'I want to bowl with the new ball and in the middle overs, I'm not so good at the death'. Because he had some tough experiences but he wanted to get better and by doing that, he's made himself hugely valuable to our setup and to other setups as well.

"The beauty of Siraj is that he has always wanted to be in a battle. He has always wanted the ball in tough times, and not everybody does. Whether it's bowling the long overs in Test cricket or the tough overs in T20 cricket, he's always put his hand up. Those are the guys you want to do well."

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Away from the field though, it's very likely that Hesson has witnessed Siraj breaking into his famous Arabi Marfa moves, even if it's on a cruise in Abu Dhabi and not exactly on the streets of Hyderabad. "You see that aggressive guy on the field? He's distinctly different when he's off it," Hesson says. Ismail would nod in agreement.

As for the rest of the world, the googly eyes await.