Mohammed Siraj, the Prince of Providence
| Siraj’s final act at The Oval becomes the spark for Rahul Desai ’s moving reflection on grief, belief, and the poetry of Test cricket.
| THE YEAR IS 2019. It’s a rainy July in Manchester; is there any other kind? It’s the second day of the semifinal of cricket’s premier one-day tournament. India is chasing a modest 240. The stadium feels like home, but the pitch and weather do not. The noise is local, but tell that to a New Zealand team full of affable hunters. India’s chase falters. The top order is wiped out. Jadeja joins Dhoni at the crease. It’s the last hurrah. A country woefully wonders if this is the day India’s dominance chooses to fade. I follow the final hour on my phone in a movie screening. I’m worried too, but it’s a pre-wired tension — the sort one experiences while watching a suspenseful film whose (happy) ending is common knowledge. I know, of course. I know India will pull through. This isn’t a deduction derived from logic or fandom. It’s beyond that. India winning this World Cup is just...meant to be. If there is justice, if there is someone above, this semi-final is ours. It’s inevitable. I can sense it. It’s the law of averages. A month ago, my childhood friend lost his mother in tragic circumstances. He’s been the biggest cricket nerd I’ve known; it’s his life, his daily light, his customised madness for more than three decades. We were watching an India-Australia game the night before it happened. He was supposed to be enjoying this chase in the stadium, live, a ripple in waves of blue. He’s been through too much already. Only cricket can heal him. Even as an atheist, I believe that this World Cup is destined to put a smile on his face. If there is a god, India will do it for him. His passion is so strong that his pain will alter the trajectory of the sport. | And then Dhoni falls short of the crease. India loses. The final against England is gone. I cannot believe it. It’s a sobering reminder that sports, like life, is heartbreakingly real. It owes us nothing. There is no upper force or romantic script, no preordained meeting with karma or personal redemption. If anything, the defeat exposes a wound I was avoiding all along; it jolts me awake from this cosmic reverie. ‘Justice’ is a construct we often build to rationalise the randomness of living. There can be no escape from the void left behind in a family; there is no false hope, no stars aligning, no divine intervention. My friend has no choice but to confront the future without a parent. Cricket will not foster him. I imagine that scene from Munna Bhai M.B.B.S , where a patient dying of cancer begs the ‘miracle-making’ gangster to save him. He cannot. The Indian ODI team could not. We move on. Fiction succumbs to fidelity. Stream live sports, blockbusters and hit shows with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. THE YEAR IS 2025. It’s a rainy August in London; is there any other kind? It’s the fifth day of the fifth Test match of a famous tour. England needs 35 to clinch the series 3-1. India needs 4 wickets to secure one of the great stalemates in modern sport. The stadium feels like home, but the legacy does not. Both teams are bruised, battered, wear their hearts in a sling, teetering on the brink of the finish line. It’s a Monday, but tell that to the crowd who’ve stormed the Oval to watch one solitary hour of Test cricket. Tell that to the thousands of emphatically empty offices across shores. India’s attack falters. 35 is reduced to 27 in two balls. Mohammed Siraj, a kingpin with the reserves of a warrior, runs in to bowl again. He has done this more than 1100 times in the series. “Again” is his middle name. | My phone pings. It’s my childhood friend and cricket companion, wiser but no older. “If there is a god, Siraj will win it for us,” he texts. The same Siraj who middled a ball onto his stumps at Lord’s inches short of the target. The same Siraj who bowled his soul out with and without Bumrah. The same Siraj who imitates a football superstar’s celebration on getting a wicket, regardless of the score and situation. The same Siraj who catches the ball but ‘drops the series’ with Harry Brook on 19 a day ago. The same Siraj whose name was missing from the congratulatory tweets of ICC chairman Jay Shah after India won the Edgbaston Test. The same Siraj who thrived on being the same Siraj. A few balls later, another text arrives: “If there is any justice , Siraj gets the final wicket”. I smile indulgently, like an adult would at a child who is yet to learn the anti-cinema of reality. I know what happened 6 years ago. I know how this will go. I’m anxious, too, but it’s the sort of pre-wired tension one experiences while watching a film whose (tragic) ending is common knowledge. This isn’t a deduction derived from logic or fandom, though. It’s more than that. It’s just not meant to be. Fifty-five minutes later, the man named Mohammed Siraj reclaims the pathos of destiny. He restores the romance of symmetry at the Oval. He knocks over Gus Atkinson, gets a fifer, brings out the silly Ronaldo celebration, drags India to a 6-run victory, and ties a series for the ages . The narrowest of margins expanded by the elasticity of storytelling. A fairytale ending, a sight of justice being served. He looks inevitable. He happened to us while we were busy making other plans. “What a win, yaar ” texts my friend, short of words but replete with worlds. He is breathless; I can hear him without hearing him. I can’t believe it. But we must. Because Siraj believes. He believes in himself, but he is brave enough to puncture the coldness of fact with the idealism of fortune. | What he’s done exists beyond the statistical certainty of sport. Watching him throughout the series, the summer, the year and the decade is like watching a player humanise the concept of divinity. There is an upper force at work because he is that force. He doesn’t embody greatness. Instead, he constructs greatness — a skyscraper of skill, talent, stamina, resilience and, most of all, serendipity — one sweat bead at a time. He isn’t immortal, for he reshapes the realms of mortality: tireless, hopeful, naive, luckless and vindicated. When the off-stump goes cartwheeling into the recesses of history, Siraj reveals the one dimension of Test cricket that the limited-overs formats have lacked: time. The time to rise after failing. The time to undo and dream. The time to bridge truth and mythology. The time to atone and avenge. The time to be more, less and time-less. The time to be the same without needing to be different. The time to come full circle. The time to be a storyteller and a story. The time to convince a fan that India can actually win for his bereaved friend. The time to let time change. And the time to be a player named Mohammed in a country where cricket is not the only religion. | Elite sport tends to acquire the linearity of prose, but a series like this — led by an athlete like this — renews the subtext of poetry. You start to see the mysticism of narratives and payoffs, signs and symbols. The fallen bails of Lord’s meet the uprooted stumps of the Oval. The ‘dropped’ catch belongs to a larger pattern of providence. “Miya Bhai” becomes an endearment in an age of slurs. The DSP jokes trade edginess for affection. The broken English language that Pakistan’s players were once mocked for becomes a catchphrase of dignity and courage. The win saves the job of a coach whose persecution complex is left with no outlet; so even his joy looks angry. The ICC chairman mentions the team’s only Muslim player in a tweet because more erasure would be blinding. A bowler whose sociocultural identity is singled out in defeat is suddenly reframed as a rags-to-riches story from the margins. A late father is hailed. The canon-puncturing fabric of Manchester 2019 is overwritten with the draw-clasping defiance of Manchester 2025. Glory is willed into being, because it is meant to be. A few hours after the bowler unwittingly endorses Google, my phone doesn’t ping. It rings. For a second, it feels like 2019 again. It’s raining outside. My friend sounds emotional. Nobody deserves it more, he repeats. I cannot agree more. He did. They did. Their pain was so strong that their dues have altered the trajectory of sport. And, fleetingly, an entire nation. I can only smile apologetically, like an adult would at a child who has discovered the cinema of optimism. This moment will pass. The doubts will return, as will the trolling and powerplay. The IPL will return, as will the war rhetoric, poor team selections and prickly press conferences. But for now, I know this. There is no god. There is a person. India won’t do it for him; he won’t do it for India either. He will do it because he can. Because he misses a parent. Because he loves cricket. And because he is one of us: a civilian driven by faith, a champion of our fate. | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? 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