Mohammed Siraj also lauded Kuldeep Yadav for his brilliant bowling in the second ODI.
Mohammed Siraj has yet again impressed one and all with his incredible bowling performance in the ongoing second ODI between India and Sri Lanka being played at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
After winning the toss, Sri Lanka decided to bat first, and the tourists got off to a solid start, reaching 102/1 in the 17th over, but Indian bowlers fought back hard, and the Islanders lost nine wickets for just 113 runs, with Siraj (3/30) and Kuldeep Yadav (3/51) each taking three wickets on Thursday (January 12).
Apart from the duo, Umran Malik scalped two wickets and Akshar Patel managed one wicket to help Team India bundle out Sri Lanka for 215 in 39.4 overs in the second ODI at Eden Gardens.
Meanwhile, Siraj opened up about his bowling plan against Sri Lanka on a batting-friendly surface at Eden Gardens. Since the wicket had almost no swing to offer, the Indian pacer decided to stick to the stump-to-stump line and put pressure on the batters to play a risky shot.
Mohammed Siraj told broadcasters Star Sports in the mid-innings break: “The ball wasn’t coming out quick enough, and there wasn’t enough swing. So, the plan was to bowl stump to stump to keep the pressure from one end, hoping to get wickets and help the other bowlers.”
He also revealed that Indian wicketkeeper KL Rahul told him after one over that there was no swing, which led him to switch early to the hard lengths to make things worse for the Sri Lankan batters.
Siraj said, “KL told me it stopped swinging after one over, so I switched over to hard lengths.”
The pacer signed off by praising Kuldeep Yadav, “It is a good batting wicket, but Kuldeep bowled very well to cause a middle-order collapse.”
(With News 18 Inputs)