Mohammed Siraj was breathing fire with the ball in the Asia Cup 2023 final against Sri Lanka and threatened to break India’s best bowling figures record if he had taken a 7th wicket but was stopped after bowling his 7 overs.
India captain Rohit Sharma revealed that Mohammed Siraj was “desperate” to bowl more, but the trainer sent a message from the dressing room and hence the pacer was taken away from the attack after bowling 7 consecutive overs.
In his first 7 overs in the final, Mohammed Siraj broke Sri Lanka’s batting order by taking 6 wickets for 21 overs. His 6/21 is now the 4th best bowling figures by an Indian bowler in ODIs. Former all-rounder Stuart Binny holds this record with his figures of 6/4 vs Bangladesh from a game in Mirpur in 2014.
Seven overs is good enough: Rohit Sharma on Mohammed Siraj’s spell
Had Siraj taken one more wicket, he would have broken Binny’s record. However, Rohit Sharma said that the trainer told him to stop so as to not break him down as Siraj had already bowled 7 overs in a row.
“We all complimented him and were behind him when he was bowling that spell. He bowled seven overs which is a lot. I wanted to keep bowling him, but I got a message from our trainer that we need to stop him now. He was also quite desperate to bowl. That’s the nature of any bowler or any batter when they see the opportunity, they want to pounce on it,” Rohit said in the post-match press conference.
“But that’s where my job comes in and I want to make sure everything stays a little calm and you don’t over exaggerate a little too much. That’s the call. I remember against Sri Lanka in Trivandrum he was in a similar situation, he bowled eight-nine overs on a trot, he was on four wickets. But seven overs is good enough,” he added.
Siraj’s 6-wicket haul, along with one wicket for Jasprit Bumrah and 3 wickets for Hardik Pandya bowled Sri Lanka out for only 50 runs in 15.2 overs. With just a small target to chase Rohit Sharma sent Ishan Kishan to open with Shubman Gill and the two youngsters chased this target down in only 6.1 overs, sealing India’s 8th Asia Cup trophy.
India’s next series is the 3-ODI series against Australia starting September 22 before the World Cup 2023 next month.
