Indian pacer Mohammed Siraj admitted that he didn't take the heartbreak of the Lord's Test easily on himself, as it took some time for him to get over it. Siraj, who played 30 balls, which is five overs, probably his biggest innings in terms of number of balls, showed fight and grit with the bat in the end to survive and stay with Ravindra Jadeja, who was a single, an odd boundary at a time taking India close to the target of 193 but the way the whole of it ended was heartbreaking.
Siraj couldn't have middled the ball any better and it just rolled down towards the stumps, with a bail falling and he was on his haunches, unable to drag himself off. "Obviously, I was very sad. In that kind of match, to get out after middling — after the kind of partnership I had with Jaddu bhai, I felt like I won’t get out," Siraj recalled the Lord's Test in the pre-match press conference in Manchester.
"The way I was batting, I had that confidence that I can’t get out here. Whatever happens, it will be my own mistake. But unfortunately, even after middling, I got out. It was very heartbreaking. Because if we had won that match, the result would’ve been totally different," Siraj added, acknowledging that he is an emotional being and the pain of the loss lingered on for a long time. The 31-year-old mentioned that he was at the end of the Lord's Test in 2021 as well, but the result was different this time.
"It stayed for a long time. Because the match was like that. In 2021 too, I took the last wicket. Then again, to be in that situation, I’m a very emotional person. Because in such a situation when I got out — I mean, if we had won, the series would be 2-1.
"But at that time, Jaddu bhai fought so well, even Jassi bhai played 54 balls. Such a fight, but in the end, it was a loss. After so much hard work, I thought, no, the series isn’t over yet, it’s still 2-1. That gave me a boost that I’ll do even better and focus on my batting. Because when we go overseas, runs from tailenders are very important. Even when we went to Australia last two times, we always thought that as much as possible, we should make runs from the bottom. So since then, we are working hard on our batting," Siraj further added.
India's tail and the lack of runs from the lower order have been a big point of conversation through the series, which is why India decided to add the likes of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar to shore up the batting. Hence, it was nice to see some fight and the want to stay in the middle from the likes of Bumrah and Siraj.
