The remarkable night at Abu Dhabi when Siraj penned history

The Royal Challengers Bangalore had a bitter start to their latest IPL campaign as the Punjab Kings pipped them to a nail-biting finish, courtesy of Odean Smith’s late blitzkrieg. Much to the surprise of the RCB fans, one of their most incisive bowling weapons for the last couple of years, Mohammed Siraj found himself at the receiving end of Smith’s power hits.

However, going by his preceding displays, if there is one thing that is certain, it is the fact that he simply doesn’t give up. No matter how bad it gets for him, he always finds a way of turning the tide around.

As the Royal Challengers lock horns with the Kolkata Knight Riders for their second game of the tournament, Siraj will have his task cut out, especially with the depth that the Knights have in their batting ranks. However, this is not the first time that he will be up against the Knight Riders. One would know how he chained Russell in the 19th over to concede just a single that won RCB the first-leg fixture with KKR in 2021. Talking about comebacks, you would of course remember that it was Andre Russell who sent Siraj for a toss in 2019.

The man who is no stranger to comebacks will be a part of another chapter of the hallowed rivalry with which IPL kickstarted its journey 15 years ago. There have been countless episodes of bowling heroics in this extended rancour but Siraj’s magical spell in 2020 is one chapter of this extended history that would probably remain indelible till the end of time.

Siraj was handed over with the onus of bowling the second over and while the new ball was doing its trick, the Indian expressman got to business straight away. After a couple of dot balls at Rahul Tripathi, the third one angled in pruning down the bare minimum width that was on offer in the last two deliveries. Taken aback by the sudden burst of speed, Rahul Tripathi’s half-hearted attempt to drive resulted him in nicking the ball and ABD completed the grab to draw first blood for the Challengers.

Siraj followed it up with an absolute peach that left Nitish Rana baffled before embarking upon the long walk to the pavilion. With a field set for a potential bouncer, Siraj whipped in a swinging yorker that beat Rana for pace and the sound of the timbre going for a walk was just another classic being played on a high-quality vinyl for the RCB fans.

Tom Banton was next and he somehow kept himself afloat in the face of two marauding inswingers one of which was a toe-crushing banger.

Miyan was immediately summoned for his next over as he was breathing fire with the cherry in his arms while KKR’s flailing batting had a gleaming ray of light around the corner as Tom Banton just took out Navdeep Saini for a couple of massive strikes. Siraj continued with his swinging apocalypse as Dinesh Karthik somehow managed to walk scot-free with the first ball of the over swinging late and kissing his pads en route its flight path. Banton somehow kept the third ball that he faced from Siraj at bay as he gently nudged it to the cover fielder.

Till then if it was Siraj’s menacing seam that landed him the early brace, it was lack of movement in the following delivery that got him his third. He bowled a much fuller delivery that was imparted with a pint of scrambled seam and it kept straight after pitching. Tom Banton completely lost track of the ball’s trajectory and by the time he could get into his stroke, the ball had already caught whiff of his blade and was nestled into the safe arms of ABD.

The way Siraj was jumbling things up, made life a living hell for an incoming Eoin Morgan. The first ball to the English skipper of the shorter formats was away from the off-stump and the former made a desperate lunge at it to push it to the fielder. He followed it up with a bouncer that had some severe pace behind it and despite a low pull from Morgan, it wasn’t controlled enough to beat the fielder. He finished the over with another dot ball that starred a short of length delivery and was in the line of the stumps, giving no room whatsoever to Morgan.

The last two overs saw Siraj keeping things incredibly tight as the Knights were just happy to breathe away a handful of singles that finished the RCB quick’s tally at 4-2-8-3, making him the only bowler to claim two maiden overs in an IPL match.