When the IPL season went bad for me, I started focussing on white-ball cricket – Mohammed Siraj

India’s rising star Mohammed Siraj didn’t have a great run for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2022 as he could only manage nine wickets in 15 matches of the season. Siraj bowled with an average of 34 and conceded his runs at a high economy rate of 10.07.

However, Siraj was able to bounce back stronger for the national team in the white-ball formats. After returning with impressive figures of 4-32 in the third ODI against Sri Lanka, Siraj revealed he worked hard on his bowling after having a poor IPL 2022 for RCB.

Siraj was able to move the ball both ways against the visitors as he was at his best. The right-arm fast bowler bowled in the right areas to reap rewards for his good work. Siraj also savored success for bowling with a wobble seam and he was able to breathe down the neck of the opposition batters in the PowerPlay overs.

“When the IPL season went bad for me, I started focussing on white ball cricket. I worked on it and grew in confidence. I stopped worrying about how my performance would go which was not case earlier. I started focussing only on execution of line and length,” Siraj said after the match.

Siraj added the wobble seam creates confusion in the batter’s mind as it is not easy to predict the movement.

“With wobbled seam, how much the ball will do neither I know nor the batter. Sometimes it goes straight after pitching other times it can come in sharply. Most of my wickets come through wobbled seam. It is effective for me and I trust it to work for me,” Siraj said.

Siraj revealed he worked on his outswing after the IPL and he was able to benefit after adding another arrow to quiver.

“Inswing was my natural earlier but then it stopped so I also developed outswing. When I did not have the inswing, I developed the wobbled seam. It took a lot of time to get effective and give me confidence. The more I bowled in the nets, the better I got. In the IPL, I spoke to Dale Steyn as well for outswing which helped me a lot,” he said.

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and veteran Virat Kohli also showered praise on Siraj for his fine bowling display. Mohammed Siraj will want to continue the good show in the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand.