19 hours Ago By Firstpost
Mohammed Siraj made a triumphant return to his former home stadium, M Chinnaswamy, in Bengaluru as he took three wickets and guided Gujarat Titans (GT) to an eight-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Wednesday. Siraj was playing against RCB for the first time since not being retained by the team ahead of the IPL 2025 auction. Siraj, however, created a quick impact for GT as he cleaned up Phil Salt and Devdutt Padikkal inside the powerplay and finished his four overs with figures of 3/19.
RCB were restricted to 169/8 at a high-scoring stadium. After the match, Siraj spoke about his emotional return and how he channeled his energy into producing a match-winning performance. “I was a bit emotional.
I was here for 7 years, changed jersey from red to blue. There was some nervousness and some emotion but the moment I got the ball in my hand, it was full-on,” Siraj said after being declared the Player of the Match. Besides taking early wickets, the 31-year-old Siraj celebrated the dismissals with Cristiano Ronaldo’s iconic celebration ‘siu’ celebration.
Explaining his celebration, he said: “I am Ronaldo’s fan and hence the celebration.” Talking about playing for GT under coach Ashish Nehra, Siraj said that his focus is to learn from the veterans of the team including pacer Ishant Sharma. “Once I was picked up by Gujarat Titans, I spoke to Ashish Bhai.
He (Nehra) tells me to go enjoy your bowling and Ishu (Ishant) Bhai tells me what line and length to bowl. My mindset is to have belief and then the pitch does not matter,” he added. GT and RCB now have the same number of points (4) after three matches each, however, RCB are at three in the points table and Gujarat are a spot below.
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