{"id":467695,"date":"2026-02-09T03:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467695\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T03:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T03:14:09","slug":"real-madrid-can-wait-sirajs-dream-night-after-late-t20-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467695\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid can wait &#8211; Siraj&#8217;s dream night after late T20 call-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India&#8217;s wicket-taking hero Mohammed Siraj said &#8220;it felt like a dream&#8221; after a whirlwind 24 hours that saw him called into the T20 World Cup squad and force him to change holiday plans to watch Real Madrid<\/p>\n<p>Siraj took a wicket with his fourth ball of his first T20 international for 19 months against the USA on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>He finished as India&#8217;s leading bowler with 3-29 as they completed a 29-run win at Mumbai&#8217;s Wankhede stadium after restricting the Americans to 132-8 in reply to 161-9.<\/p>\n<p>The experienced quick bowler was only added to the squad 24 hours earlier as a replacement for the injured Harshit Rana.<\/p>\n<p>He then was parachuted straight into the team for the opening match against the United States after space spearhead Jasprit Bumrah was unable to play because of a fever.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First of all, in the last 24 hours, when I was sitting on the flight, it felt like a dream,&#8221; an beaming Siraj told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;God changed my destiny. I was spending time with my family &#8230; suddenly, Surya bhai (captain Suryakumar Yadav) called me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He said, &#8216;get ready, pack your bag, and come&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old Siraj has been a regular performer for the Test team with 139 wickets in 45 matches but had not played a T20 international since July 2024.<\/p>\n<p>After being initially left out of India&#8217;s T20 World Cup squad, the Hyderabad-born Siraj had planned to go to Spain and watch his favourite football team, Real Madrid, in action.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My plan was that on the 15th (of February), there was a Real Madrid match, and I was going to watch it,&#8221; said Siraj.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After that, Ramzan (Islamic month of fasting) was coming, so I had planned around that. But whatever God has written will happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He is a self-confessed Cristiano Ronaldo fan, has a wallpaper of the football icon on his phone and often celebrates his wickets with his idol&#8217;s famous &#8220;Siu&#8221; celebration.<\/p>\n<p>The co-hosts India next play Namibia in New Delhi on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s wicket-taking hero Mohammed Siraj said &#8220;it felt like a dream&#8221; after a whirlwind 24 hours that saw&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-467695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}