Honing the arduous powerplay skills - the Mohammed Siraj way

After making inroads for Hyderabad in the domestic season, Mohammed Siraj earned his rights to play with the big boys, in the IPL, when he was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad. Siraj was a thorough and thorough Hyderabadi and when Sunrisers had bought him, there was resounding happiness - the Miya Bhai had arrived on to the scene, in the IPL. 

Two seasons had gone by, Siraj had picked up 18 wickets in 2018 and 19 but at an average of 35, with a dot-ball percentage of nearly 44.5. Until then, he was a back-bencher in the top-wickets list in the powerplay, with an impact only 44th best in the league. Across two seasons (2018 and 19) Siraj had picked up just two wickets in the powerplay, conceding 10 RPO and at an average of 65, which was bettered by 43 other bowlers in the league. 

What changed, did he become magically any better?

In 2020, with the league being moved to the Middle East, where there was some purchase for the seamers, Siraj took the chances with both hands, transforming himself dramatically into a perfect new ball bowler - picking wickets, bowling a lot more dot balls and conceding very few runs. That season, Siraj picked up seven wickets in the powerplay, on par with Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepak Chahar and Ravichandran Ashwin. 

That wasn’t it at all, his average in the powerplay was the best for an Indian bowler, the second-best in the league, only behind Jofra Archer. Siraj hadn’t done anything miraculous, he was in fact bowling the Test-match length, getting the batsmen to play the false stroke to the cross-seamed wobbly deliveries. If anything changed, it was his confidence, it was the very same confidence that has made him the bowler he is, today! The skillset kept evolving, so did his confidence, which reached a level where he was almost unplayable. 

Since 2020, Siraj finds himself third on the list of top wicket-takers in the league, in the powerplay, with 11 wickets, at an average of 18 and an economy rate only behind five bowlers - Archer, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bumrah, Washington Sundar and Sandeep Sharma. He formed the crucial component of RCB’s bowling attack, alongside the off-spinner Washington and Proteas all-rounder Chris Morris.

But in 2021, he found himself alongside Kyle Jamieson with support from the other bowlers. The duo formed a crucial partnership with the new-ball for the franchise, with eight wickets in between them. While Jamieson had a significantly higher strike rate, he conceded 8 RPO while Siraj bowled line to line, length to length, restricting the batsmen to just 6.75 RPO in the powerplay. 

Siraj, in this year's IPL, only finds himself behind Deepak Chahar and Arshdeep Singh in the Indian contingent of pacers. But more importantly, with RCB’s past been plagued by their terrible new-ball bowling, the Hyderabad bowler’s emergence has come as true spruce. More importantly, the 27-year-old has just bowled 29 overs in the powerplay, two more than Bumrah, which shows how RCB have used him.

Siraj’s effectiveness in the death

With Harshal Patel being traded-in by the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the responsibility of the death-overs was put on his shoulder, and he rose up to the occasion. However, even then, the franchise had paired the Hyderabad seamer alongside him in the death. Shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the best death bowlers in the league - Bumrah, Avesh and Mustafizur - conceding just 8.78 RPO in the death. 

What’s more effective is how Siraj has brought the yorkers to the table, with far more consistency than the previous years. After last year’s debacle in the death, where he didn’t even feature in the list of 30 bowlers in the death, Siraj has made his name onto the list and more effectively, with his yorkers. Not just that, in the last two years, the pacer has bowled 51% of his deliveries as dot-balls, with the famous saying going by “Dot balls are gold in T20s”. 

In 2021, RCB stayed true to their place, with 10 wickets, only behind Delhi and Chennai in the powerplay, conceding just 7.69 RPO with the field restriction in play. With that, they have also bowled the fourth-most dot balls in the league, 126 in the powerplay only behind Mumbai, Punjab and Delhi. One of their major factors for the success in the powerplay was Mohammed Siraj, who since his debut has transformed himself into one of the more consistent performers in the powerplay with that white ball.