Mohammed Siraj received a surprising call from captain Suryakumar Yadav just as he was getting ready to take a plane to Spain in a week to watch his favorite team, Real Madrid, play Real Sociedad.
“Two days ago Surya bhai said ‘Miaan bags pack kar aur aaja (Pack your bags and come to Mumbai). I told him ‘Bhai mazaak maat karo kyon ki yeh to hone wala hain nahi’ (Brother please don’t joke I know this won’t happen). But he said ‘main sach keh raha hoon, ready ho jaa’ (I am telling you the truth, get ready).
“Then (India selector Pragyan) Ojha bhai called me. Whatever the almighty has written, no one can change that,” PTI quoted an elated Siraj narrating his comeback story after being the pick of the Indian bowlers with three wickets in team’s 29 run win against USA in the T20 World Cup match in Mumbai on Saturday.
After playing a few Ranji Trophy games for Hyderabad in February, he was questioned about how he had planned for the break, Siraj said, “There is a Real Madrid game on 15th and I was going to watch it and after that Ramzan, but whatever the almighty has written…”
In fact when team’s S&C coach Adrian Le Roux had messaged him asking ‘what’s the plan?’, Siraj had replied ‘don’t message me right now because I had played two four-day games and I need rest. I will see after this what the plan is.’
When the team’s S&C coach, Adrian Le Roux, messaged him to inquire, “What’s the plan?” Siraj really answered, “Don’t message me right now because I had played two four-day games and I need rest. I will see after this what the plan is.”
Knowing that he was not part of India’s plans for the T20 World Cup, Siraj claimed he could not believe he had been called up.
“It was feeling like a dream when I was on the flight, because I had not thought about playing in the World Cup. The planning was going on for the last one year, those who were bound to play in this were getting the chances and since I had not played T20Is, I had understood that I won’t be a part of it,” Siraj said.
