Braving odds, never giving up and tracing unconventional routes, the threads that bind Mohammed Siraj and Shoaib Bashir

Just one bail dropped and two incredible stories got contrasting ends. One joyful, the other sad but both engaging and inspiring.

Siraj and Bashir prove that it isn’t cards you are dealt but how you play the hand. At Lord’s, like in their lives, they endured pain, defied odds and fought gamely till fate announced the day’s winners.

Test Cricket.
Wow.
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— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 14, 2025

Nadeem Amin is the assistant coach at Gujarat Titans, the IPL franchise that Siraj plays for. This last season, he got a chance to work closely with the India pacer. He helps to understand the mindset of the player whose energy levels or optimism never fade.

Regardless of the match-situation, Siraj never stops sprinting when bowling. Ambling or trotting, that’s not for him. The pacer appeals for everything. He fights, screams and sledges.

What’s that one word that comes to his mind when he hears Mohammed Siraj? “He is a warrior. He wants to fight all the time. He’s always in the battle. It’s unbelievable if you watch him train, he runs in hard, there are no half measures,” he says. “You’ll see him give 100 percent—whether it’s bowling, fielding, batting. He wants to be in the game, wants to be involved. He’s that kind of guy, if he is injured mid-over, he will still give you 100% on one leg.”

Bashir, at Lord’s, gave 100 per cent with just one hand. Earlier in the game, while stopping a fierce Ravindra Jadeja straight drive, the tall 21-year-old fractured the little finger of his left-hand. He was ruled out of the series but he still took the field. He would field and also bowl. He grimaced in pain when his non-bowling hand would got jerked by the rigour of imparting spin on an unresponsive track.

With India not too far away from an unlikely win and England close to embarrassment, Stokes threw the ball to the team’s baby- Bash. Historically, physical injuries or medical advice don’t intimidate Bashir, they don’t keep him away from cricket anyway.

Olly Birts is the cricket director of the Guildford Cricket Club, Bashir’s alma mater, which is an hour’s train ride from London. He was the captain when a young Bashir played for the club. Also when he got hit on his face while fielding in a club game.

“We had this incident in a game, it actually off my bowling. He was fielding at mid-on and dropped a catch and the ball went through his hands and hit the mouth. A few teeth came out and few went through the lip. It was quite a serious injury. But he was back playing the next week, desperate to play.

India’s Mohammed Siraj carries a stump as he celebrates with teammates after their win against England on day five of the second cricket test match at Edgbaston in Birmingham, England, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

“Straight to A&E (Accident and Emergency), he was back the next week playing. Everyone was like – ‘What are you doing here’,” says Birts, fresh from a one-on-one session with a youngster at the club that has produced cricketers like Ollie Pope and former England stars like Ashely Giles.

From his own experience of working with a teenaged Bashir, Birts can imagine the pestering Stokes would have had gone through on Day 5 of the Lord’s Test.

“There was a partnership in the middle, I think he (Bashir) bowled at (Nitish) Reddy and Jadeja when they were going just before lunch. And then again, after tea, Bash bowled the first over. I’m sure Bash would have been in Stokes’ ear saying, ‘I want the ball, get me on the pitch. I want to be the person to get the wicket’. He was always like that at Guildford. Very much asking to have the ball … not happy when he came off which a lot of good bowlers do.”

The coach wasn’t surprised when Bashir marked his run-up after tea but he remains in awe of his one-time team mate’s courage. “He has a broken finger and most people probably just sit in the changing room and hope others get the job done. But he was, by the sound of it, desperate to get out there and be the man to change the game.”

Siraj too is a bowler who hates being taken off from the attack. Amin saw that in the game against Mumbai Indians this season. “I remember a game when the ball was reversing and he came in, he just went bang, bang, bang … and got a few wickets and changed the game. Often people talk about skill and all that stuff. But he has the will and desire. He can get the end result … he’ll always be the best version of himself. He will rise to the occasion and say, ‘Let me get the wicket for you, give me the ball’. That’s Mohammed Siraj. He is a warrior,” says Amin.

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Many years back, the world didn’t see the warrior in Siraj, or even Bashir. If not for some fortuitous turn of events the son of a rickshaw driver, Siraj’s tales of valour would have been confined to his neighbourhood and Bashir would be just another British Asian cricketer, whose talent would get discussed around England’s only Grade 1 mosque, named after Shah Jehan, in Woking.

The Test closed out with shots of Harry Brook, Zak Crawley and Joe Root being among the first to lift a distraught Mohammed Siraj, who was in their faces for most of the time they were at the crease with the bat. (AP Photo)

Siraj’s story is more popular. He was once a net bowler when the Indian team was in Hyderabad for an international game. Committed to give 100 per cent whenever he has a ball in hand, Siraj bent his back and bowled a few nasty bouncers to both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. The bravado didn’t go unnoticed. India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun took note.

As luck would have it, Arun got appointed as Hyderabad’s Ranji coach the next season. He would ask for that net bowler with the gumption of having a go at stars. He found out that the boy wasn’t in the Ranji camp, nor was one of the probables. The system had dutifully rejected him.

Arun didn’t remember the name but had a vague memory of it starting with ‘S’. All kids with names starting with ‘S’ who were the net bowlers on that day were lined up. There, among them, was Siraj smiling. Even today, when Siraj is confused about cricket, or life, he calls the coach who changed his life.

Does Siraj talk about his old days? Amin’s answer says he isn’t someone who looks back. “Everybody knows where his struggles have been. Everybody knows where he comes from. But when you’re achieving, it’s about looking forward. That doesn’t mean you look backwards in a negative way. He knows and he appreciates everything he has and he counts his days as a blessing. He’s very, very grateful for the position he’s in to where he was before,” he says.

It is exactly why Siraj asks for the ball, pounces at every half-chance that comes his way. That’s why at Lord’s on the final day, Siraj didn’t feel the pressure, he saw it as an opportunity. He didn’t track back, he wanted to take the game by the scruff of its neck.

Jadeja tried to shield him, play four balls and give him two. But Siraj would always be halfway down the pitch when Jadeja would refuse singles. After a time, he would play Jofra Archer’s fiery over. He would get hit but get repairs done, stand up and continue the fight.

Bashir’s journey too has been about setbacks and serendipity. From a state-funded secondary school, it wasn’t easy for the spinner to get spotted. But somehow he managed to get into the Surrey academy. If he thought he had made it, he was wrong.

At 17, he was asked to go, apparently not good enough to pursue cricket professionally. “It was demoralising … hard for a kid to be told that you are not good enough. I used that as a motivation factor. I’m just so grateful for the opportunities I have been given,” he once said.

He changed his county but continued playing for his local club Guildford CC. “It was a tough little period for him because he’d just been dropped by Surrey. I was just hoping that he’d find a way to get over that little hurdle which he did very comfortably and it felt quite obvious that he always would,” he says.

If it was Siraj’s spunk that impressed Arun, it was the spin and accuracy that had caught Birts’ eye at Guildford CC and also went a long way in fast-tracking Bashir to the England team. It was a viral clip that got Bashir the break that cricketers spend a lifetime waiting for.

England’s Shoaib Bashir gestures during the fifth day of the third test cricket match between India and England, at the Lord’s Cricket Ground, in London, Monday July 14, 2025. (PTI Photo)

In a county game, he got a chance to bowl at England great Alastair Cook. Bashir excelled, he didn’t whittle under pressure. Cook struggled, Bashir bowled on the perfect spot.

A smart videographer edited his spell, captured all his balls in one video and put it on twitter. Stokes saw it and got interested. Bashir got picked for the England Lions tour where he got the nod from Graeme Swann, an English spinner of repute. Soon the offie from Woking was on the plane to India for the Test tour.

In the first Test, he had Rohit Sharma in front of him. Opportunity had landed again, Bashir was ready to grab it.

“There was a specific game plan which he’d been working on. Trying to come quite tight to the stumps and going for an over-spun ball into a sort of leg stump line, looking for Sharma to get that little tickle. And it worked perfectly on debut. It shows how much work and effort he puts into specific batters and into his cricket generally,” says Brits

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Another Bashir plan that worked, in this series, was against Rishabh Pant. At Birmingham, in the second Test, Pant hit the offie for a six but was later caught on the fence when Bashir changed the pace of a similar ball soon after.

Birts laughs, he recalls the conversation he used to have with Bashir. “Bash would not like getting hit for a six. I used to tell him, you need to enjoy getting hit for six because if a batter’s hitting you for six it means the ball’s going to go straight up next ball and you’ve just got to trust that they’re going to make a mistake. Ultimately, the aim of the game is to get wickets …,” says Birts.

Siraj, much more experienced than Bashir, too is listening and learning. Amin saw that first hand at the Gujarat Titans, where the head coach was the India international Ashish Nehra. “If you had seen (them), you would have noticed the amount of times Siraj was gravitating around Nehra, asking about his experiences and wanting to get better and how he can do something else. If I release the ball this way, what are your thoughts on this?” he says.

It is the will to succeed that makes cricketers like Siraj and Bashir soak in every bit of advice they get. They know their time will come. Not always will the ball spin like a top and the bail trickle. Not always will England squeal in delight and India rue their luck. If it was Bashir that day, it would be Siraj some other day.