India v Australia – The method behind Mohammed Siraj’s PowerPlay success

-Bharath Ramaraj

If we take a piece of paper and do some number-crunching on Mohammed Siraj’s bowling, one particular statistic glows brightly: His first PowerPlay numbers in ODI cricket since the start of 2022. In that period, Siraj has plucked as many as 25 wickets in the first 10 overs.

To understand Siraj’s ever-rising stocks with the new ball in the 50-over format, let’s turn the pages back in time to January 15 this year. The temperature at Thiruvananthapuram had cooled down a bit after soaring to almost 40 degrees in the afternoon. But while zooming on the action in the middle, it felt as if nothing much had changed as Sri Lanka were facing some heat from Siraj’s unerring control and adroitness. On that night, Siraj’s bowling turned into a prophet of doom for Sri Lanka as he upended their top order with a four-for.

The first of his victims was the opener Avishka Fernando. With the wrist position tilted for outswing, he forced Avishka Fernando to edge one to the wide slip fielder. Subsequently, Siraj employed his variation – three-quarter seam ball – to scalp the wicket of Kusal Mendis. The ball wobbled in the air and straightened off the pitch just enough to produce the edge. It was his fourth and final scalp of the innings that showed the real value of his three-quarter seam ball. If Mendis was dislodged on the back of a delivery that straightened off the pitch, then Hasaranga was done in by the nip-backer that shattered the timber. He had peppered the No.6 batter with outswingers before delivering the coup de grace via the three-quarter seam ball.

So what is the method behind the three-quarter seam ball? And why has it turned into a tried and tested weapon for Siraj across all formats, especially in the 50-over format? With the three-quarter seam ball, the bowler generally holds it at around 45-degree angle. The ball then wobbles in the air and nips away from the left-handed batter or into the right-hander. Occasionally, it can straighten off the deck as Mendis found out. The crux of the point is, as it wobbles in the air, it could befuddle the batter in relation to which way it would move after pitching.

Basically, the seamer had decided to add another potent arrow to his quiver some years ago as he seemed to have lost the feel to bowl the inswinger to the right-handed batter. “In 2018, the incoming deliveries had completely stopped. At that time my outswing was working better,” he had said in a presser. “So I was a bit confused as to why my in-swingers weren’t working. Then I decided to use the wobble seam because incoming deliveries are always a problem for batsmen. Because outswing is visible more clearly for the batsmen but when it comes in then it becomes difficult for the batsmen. So I used the wobble seam because it is quite effective like an off-cutter, I trust it more because I get success from it.”

Now we can get a better picture of how Siraj has found considerable success in the first PowerPlay in ODIs: Outswingers blended with the three-quarter seam ball. The white Kookaburra also doesn’t swing for long upfront, and in such a scenario, the three-quarter seam ball brings another dimension to his bowling.

Siraj hasn’t just become a formidable force with the new ball in ODIs but he seems to have also stapled the required attributes needed for other phases of the innings. For instance, in the second ODI of the three-match series against South Africa last year, he did show bowling smarts by taking pace off the ball on a wicket that had slowed down. He also twinned it by hitting a shorter length and bowled to his field as he ended up giving away just 18 runs in his final four overs. When needed, Siraj can also nail wide yorkers.

The Indian think-tank would be hoping that the aggressive seamer will continue to spearhead the pace attack when the home side takes on Australia in the three-match ODI series, starting with the first game at the Wankhede Stadium on March 17.

There is another narrative attached to Siraj’s emergence in the ODI format and how he has bowled in tandem with his pace colleague Mohammed Shami. Jasprit Bumrah’s absence due to his back injury has meant that one of the biggest pieces has been missing from India’s jigsaw puzzle – pace spearhead. The Indian set-up would dearly hope for Bumrah to be fit and firing for the 50-over World Cup to be played at home later this year. But with Siraj growing in stature in the 50-over format, India seem to have found some back-up to fill the void.