Mohammed Siraj had a few rough matches in between. India's second-in-command pacer was out of sorts until the lead-up to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, picking up just eight wickets across six Tests. In ODIs, he has gone wicketless in 2024, while T20Is yielded him two wickets from six matches. Safe to say, Siraj was struggling, and despite encouraging words from Jasprit Bumrah, who told him, "Don't worry about wickets, it will come in due time. If it doesn't, come to me," and bowling coach Morne Morkel's "You are a warrior, don't worry, just bowl," advice, Siraj found himself in a no-man's land.

This led to Siraj being dropped from the second Test against New Zealand. As the Kiwis completed a 3-0 demolition of India, Siraj knew he had to correct his course of action ahead of the five-Test tour of Australia, and for this, he dialled up an old friend, someone who had helped him find his feet in international cricket.

"He sounded a touch sad, down, then. He told me that the ball was sliding towards leg, he wasn't getting the swing and the seam position didn’t feel as ideal as before. I had been watching him and had noticed a few changes and asked him what he had been trying. In his pursuit of wickets, he had felt that he had to increase his pace, try to get more swing/movement and was putting more effort at release," Bharat Arun, the former India bowling coach, told The Indian Express.

"The main problem as I saw it was his wrist wasn’t behind the ball, his most crucial weapon. In his effort to increase the pace, all these mistakes were creeping up. Perhaps he felt a bit rushed at the crease. What happens then is your body can also slide/tilt a bit more, especially if you are an open-chested bowler like him. That meant his radar was now going down. Without the wrist at the right place, the seam position too was getting affected. And instead of getting more movement that he wanted, the bowling was getting affected."

Why Mohammed Siraj was struggling, Bharat Arun explains in detail

Siraj is at his best when he is bowling a strong and intimidating stump-to-stump line to the batters, which is why most of his wickets, when in full flow, have been either bowled or LBWs, or caught behind after squaring up the batter. With his wrists not in proper position, Siraj lacked the same accuracy that made him a threat when he burst onto the Test set-up. Hence, Arun, who had worked closely with the bowler in India's domestic scene, knew what he had to do. Get Siraj to get his lines right and only focus on the bottom of the stumps.

"It's no use saying get the wrist behind the ball; when you are edgy and worried, all that doesn’t make sense. I know Siraj, he works best when you give him a simple bowling plan, a drill, say. That's the off stump, so to speak, and if he wants he can bring the ball from just outside or straight. Setting a simple target like that forces accuracy," he said.

"I then told him to bowl a lot of yorkers at that one stump. Now, this is not to improve his yorkers but to get the wrist in the right position behind the ball. You can't bowl yorkers, good ones that is, without the wrist in the right position. If it's tilted or out of shape, then the ball won’t go where you want it to go."

Mohammed Siraj rediscovers his mojo

Arun's impact on Siraj was visible straightaway as the India pacer went back to his wicket-taking ways, finishing with a match-figures of 5/51. In the first innings, Siraj dismissed Marnus Labuschagne out LBW and had Mitchell Marsh nick the ball to KL Rahul at second slip. In the second innings, Siraj outshone his stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah, picking up three out of the first five wickets to fall – Usman Khawaja, Pat Cummins and Steve Smith – all out caught behind dismissals but due to the batters' struggle to play down a straight line.

"That Smith wicket in the second innings was the ideal Siraj for me. How much did it move? Not much. It's not what he was trying to do when he was down and in poor form; he had wanted lots of movement etc. That's not him, as in that's not his bowling style," added Arun.

"That helps the ball in straightening and when it did, Smith edged it. For Siraj, the main thing is the wrist behind the ball. That’s the sign; for him if that happens, it means other things are in place: he is not falling away, he is not pushing the ball down, and he is hitting the right lengths."

Siraj's return to form comes at the right time for India, who are already 1-0 up and keen to make it 2-0 in the pink-ball day-night Test in Adelaide starting Friday.

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