After his heroics in the England Test series, Indian pace bowling spearhead Mohammed Siraj once again delivered the goods in the series opener of the IND vs WI Tests today (October 2).
Siraj finished as India’s best bowler with figures of 4/40 in 14 overs, but off those exploits, two wickets really stood out – the dismissals of Brandon King and skipper Roston Chase.
Both dismissals came off wobble-seam deliveries and the batters were left clueless in both instances.
The ball to King was pitched outside off and he opted to leave but it jagged back and castled into the middle stump. On the other hand, the one that dismissed Chase pitched and straightened, seaming away 0.7 degrees as he nicked it behind to the wicketkeeper despite reading the delivery.
Speaking about the Chase dismissal at the end of the day press conference, Siraj said,
“The wobble-seam [ball] is like this, that it sometimes straightens and sometimes cuts [into the right-hand batter],” Siraj said at his press conference at the end of the day’s play. “That ball kind of straightened towards the shiny side. I mostly look to move the wobble-seam [ball] in, but it kept straightening towards the shiny side, and took the edge, caught behind.”
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A good student of the game, Siraj has now almost perfected the craft of bowling such deliveries. However, it has not come easy, not without sheer practice and luckless spell followed luckless spell where nothing went his way.
His ironclad self-belief in his processes and perfecting his variations is now finally reaping him rewards. Notably, in the last five Tests, he has taken a couple of fifers and two four-fors.
Speaking about how the wobble-seam has helped him, Siraj added,
“When I realised that in-swing was not coming on naturally for me, I worked on out-swing and I also kept bowling with the wobble seam in practice. I gained confidence with it. It has helped me a lot in international cricket and it is a very important weapon for me. When out-swing doesn’t work for me, wobble seam does, and it gives me success. When I realised there wasn’t much swing today, I used it.”
This new arsenal in Siraj’s repertoire can make him a lethal pacer in subcontinent conditions. Especially, with not much seam movement available on offer, wobble-seam can be a handy attacking weapon for a fast bowler to get breakthroughs. To get reverse swing, one has to wait for the ball to get old but with his wobble-seam deliveries now, Siraj seems to be using his new trick according to his whim.
India has three more home Tests still after the ongoing fixture (one more against West Indies and two against South Africa) and Siraj will hope that the wobble seam fetches him continued success on other surfaces in the subcontinent as well.
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