Mumbai: Mohammed Siraj was in a mood to chill and was about to fly to Spain in a week’s time to watch his favourite team Real Madrid play against Real Sociedad when skipper Suryakumar Yadav’s number beeped on his cellphone.
“Two days Surya bhai said:”Miaan bags pack kaar aur aaja (Pack your bags and come (to Mumbai)). I told him “Bhai mazaak maat karo kyon ki yeh to honewala hain nahi (Brother please don’t joke as this won’t happen). But he said ‘mai sach keh raha hoon, ready ho ja’ (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,” an elated Siraj narrated 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 opener.
When asked about how he had planned for the break in February after playing a couple of Ranji Trophy matches for Hyderabad, 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.” Siraj said he was not able to believe that he was called up, knowing that he was not in India’s plans for the tournament.
“It was feeling like a dream when I was on the flight, because I had not thought about playing in the World Cup,” Siraj said.
“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.” As one of his teammates Rinku Singh always aptly posts on social media: “God’s Plan Baby”.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
