With Ronaldo in his heart and phone, Siraj runs on 'belief'

Mohammed Siraj is a massive Cristiano Ronaldo fan. His 'Siu' celebrations make that quite clear. So on the final morning of the fifth Test against England, it was CR7 who was on Siraj's mind after he woke up restless at 6am instead of the usual 8am.

In a way, Siraj was responsible for the Oval Test entering the final day; he had caught Harry Brook at long leg but stepped on the boundary to concede six during the morning session on Sunday. Brook went on to score a century and have a match-turning partnership with Joe Root. But Siraj was also responsible for the match being poised on a knife-edge, delivering two long and amazing spells of fast bowling on tired legs with an old ball.

So with England needing 35 to win the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, and The Oval colosseum filling rapidly despite it being Monday morning, the gladiator in Siraj wanted to leave his mark. England had four wickets in hand, albeit one was Chris Woakes in a sling, but Siraj had belief.

"I usually wake up at 8, but today I woke up at 6am. I told myself I can do it today. I went on Google and searched for this image," he said at the press conference after the match, raising his phone to show Ronaldo's picture with 'BELIEVE' written above it. "I downloaded the image, and made it the wallpaper. So belief is very important."

Belief is what allowed Siraj to bounce back from the mistake of reprieving Brook on 19. He said it was a "game-changing moment" when Brook got away and went into T20 mode to nearly take the Test away from India. But Siraj did not let that setback defeat him. "But I'm a senior bowler. I will not shoulder down."

He told himself things happen, and moved on quickly. Shubman Gill, his captain, sitting next to him at the press conference after India's win, quipped that if Siraj had held the catch, he could have saved everyone a lot of stress.

"Also, if you had taken the catch, [I'm] thinking [it] would have been too easy for us," Gill said as Siraj burst into a chuckle like the rest of the room.

Belief underpins the Siraj story, which started with a tennis ball in his late teenage years before he was spotted, nurtured and developed by former India quick and fast-bowling coach Bharat Arun. Combining belief with his skillset, Siraj has, along with Jasprit Bumrah, quickly grown into India's most dependable fast bowler in the longest format. For the second successive day, Siraj showed his sharp bowling intellect. He applied pressure from the first ball, delivering mostly outswingers, pitching on a good length and on the fifth- or sixth-stump line, and moving the ball away to challenge the England batters to take a risk.

The batter's problems were exacerbated by Siraj's ability to cut the ball sharply into the pads with the wobble seam: to play him as a swing bowler, or a hit-the-deck bowler, which Siraj, in a chat with Dinesh Karthik on Sky Sports, said he was? He did not relent even for a minute until he had knocked back Gus Atkinson's off stump with a 143kph yorker - just like he had hit Zak Crawley's off stump with a similar ball to end play on day three.

Siraj, who won the Player-of-the-Match award for his nine wickets at The Oval, bowled 185.3 overs in the series to finish as the leading wicket-taker with 23 wickets. After the win, Siraj bounced around the ground with the ball in hand while thanking the fans, and arrived at the press conference flashing a big smile. High on dopamine, he showed no trace of the toil he has had for the last two months.

"Body is fine right now because it is almost 187 overs [which I bowled]," Siraj said in broken English when asked whether he felt exhausted. "But [when] you play for the country, you give everything. Don't think too much [whether] you bowl the sixth over or you bowl your ninth over. I don't care. I believe you bowl every ball for your country, not for yourself. [When] you play for the country, give it everything. Rest doesn't matter."

Siraj had coped with an extremely heavy workload during India's previous five-Test series too - the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. India lost that series 3-1 despite Bumrah's record-breaking numbers, as he took 32 wickets. But Siraj, who had bowled 157.1 overs in that series, the most for India, also took 20 wickets at an average of just over 31. Siraj said his role in Australia was different to that in England, where he was the leader of the attack with Bumrah playing only three of the five Tests.

"In Australia, while Jassi [Jasprit] bhai was performing, my only job was to bowl in partnerships and build pressure, and not try something else - because then there is a potential to leak runs, and that could build pressure on us," he said. "As for my improvement, I always believe in my bowling that I can take a wicket in any situation. I don't mind whether I am bowling the first spell or eighth. I just need to give 100%. I have never run after results, and [I'm] rather focused on the process of how to build pressure by bowling in partnerships."

Siraj has been part of several memorable moments in Indian cricket. He was part of the team when Ajinkya Rahane's India triumphed at the Gabba in 2020-21 to win the series in Australia 2-1. He felt this drawn series in England would be ranked slightly higher, though.

"I will rate it higher because [of] the way we have fought throughout this series, with each Test going into the fifth day," he said. "There was a lot of belief in this dressing room, and everyone believed this morning [that] we would win this match."

The Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has been a series full of unforgettable moments. Two of its defining images are of Siraj: one on his haunches at Lord's after being bowled by Shoaib Bashir, and another of him covering his face in the fading light on an overcast Sunday at The Oval after letting Brook off.

"I don't know why I am in these moments," he said. "At Lord's, unfortunately, I couldn't finish. But the almighty clearly had something good written for me in his mind, and that's why I am here at this moment, and I could take the wickets in the end."

Siraj knows exactly why he is where he is - bowling India to one of their most famous victories, and their narrowest, by a margin of six runs.

"Stay honest to your game," he says. "Believe in yourself. Without belief, nothing can happen."