At first glance, India’s disastrous red-ball form in recent months hasn’t been a factor in selecting the Champions Trophy squad, with the tournament being played with a white ball and in the 50-over format. Almost all the batters who succumbed so meekly in Australia are part of the 15. The one eyebrow-raising omission is that of Mohammed Siraj, India's most successful ODI bowler over the last four years.
Siraj bowled some probing spells in Australia, but was also maddeningly inconsistent, and that seems to have cost him when it came to selecting a side for the Champions Trophy, where India will play all their matches on ‘neutral’ turf in Dubai.
Rohit Sharma, India’s captain, didn’t reference Siraj’s displays in Australia, but instead spoke of how he was viewed only as a new-ball threat.
“We are not sure if Jasprit Bumrah will play or not,” he said in the post-selection press conference on Saturday.
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“Hence, we wanted someone who can bowl with the new ball and the old one. That is why we have picked Arshdeep Singh, because of his abilities in the backend. Siraj’s effectiveness comes down if he doesn’t use the new ball. It’s unfortunate he misses out.”
Arshdeep, despite being an integral part of the T20 World Cup-winning side last year, has played just 8 ODIs in more than two years, but Rohit was certain that he’s ready to take over the Siraj role alongside Bumrah and Mohammed Shami.
“He's been there (for long) enough, and he's bowled some tough overs in white-ball cricket,” said Rohit.
“I definitely think he can handle that pressure. Shami is a stalwart of white-ball cricket and what he did recently in the (ODI) World Cup was superb to watch.”
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But, has Siraj been hard done by? The numbers would suggest so. Even as Shami and Bumrah have been rested or missed out through injury, Siraj has been India’s pace workhorse in the last four years, playing nearly twice as many matches (43) as the more experienced duo (22). In that time, only the Pakistani pair of Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi have a marginally better strike-rate than Siraj, though he has been vastly more economical.
And while Shami (strike-rate of 20) has been India’s most lethal ODI weapon, Siraj isn’t far behind. His strike-rate of 26.9 equates to two wickets a game, and few will forget his spell of 6-21 that skittled Sri Lanka in the 2023 Asia Cup final.
Arshdeep may well slot in seamlessly, as he did into the T20 side, but with Bumrah’s fitness under such a cloud and Shami not having played international cricket since the 2023 World Cup final, Indian cricket fans will hope that the decision to leave Siraj out doesn’t prove to be a costly mistake.
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