{"id":45244,"date":"2025-08-05T09:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45244\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T09:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:05:09","slug":"mohammed-sirajs-success-story-mothers-daily-prayers-visit-to-late-fathers-grave-before-tours-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45244\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohammed Siraj’s success story: Mother’s daily prayers, visit to late father’s grave before tours | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MohammedIndia cricketer Mohammed Siraj with his mother and brother. (Image: Special Arrangement)\"MohammedCricketer Mohammaed Siraj with his family. (Instagram)\"MohammedIndia cricketer Mohammed Siraj with his mother and brother. (Image: Special Arrangement)\"MohammedCricketer Mohammaed Siraj with his family. (Instagram)\"MohammedIndia cricketer Mohammed Siraj with his mother and brother. (Image: Special Arrangement) NEW DELHI: For Mohammed Siraj<\/a>, visiting his father\u2019s grave before and after cricket tour is a special routine. Before leaving for any tournament, he goes to his father\u2019s grave to pray and seek blessings. And when he returns, he goes straight there from the airport before going home.Siraj lost his father, Mohammed Ghouse, in 2021 while he was on tour to Australia. Since then, this ritual has helped him stay connected to his father, who was an auto-rickshaw driver and played a huge role in supporting Siraj\u2019s dream of becoming a cricketer.<\/p>\n

Bowled Over by Miya Magic: Mohammed Siraj shines brightest | IND vs ENG 5th Test<\/p>\n

Before leaving for England in June, Siraj packed his bags, hugged his mother, and told her, \u201cAmmi, mere liye dua karna. Main achha karun aur India ko jitau [Mom, pray for me. I want to do well and win for India].\u201d As per ritual, he then went to his father\u2019s grave to pray before heading to the airport.\u201cApne abbu se bahot pyar karta hai [Siraj loves his father dearly]. And his father loved him just as much \u2014 he would have done anything for him. My prayers are always with Siraj. May Allah bless my bachha with success in everything,\u201d his mother Shabana Begum told TimesofIndia.com.Shabana never misses a match when Siraj is playing. She watched every game of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, clapping, cheering, and offering five prayers every day. In Islam, these daily prayers happen at dawn (Fajr), noon (Dhuhr), afternoon (Asr), sunset (Maghrib), and night (Isha). She didn\u2019t miss a single one during the England tour.Her prayers seemed to be with him throughout. Siraj played a key role in India\u2019s dramatic win in the fifth Test at The Oval, helping level the series 2-2.\"Mohammed<\/p>\n

Mohammed Siraj won the Player of the Match at The Oval in the fifth Test between England and India. <\/p>\n

\u201cAmmi always prays for bhai. There\u2019s a lot of power in a mother\u2019s prayer. I believe it\u2019s because of both our parents\u2019 blessings that he\u2019s in a good space and doing well for India. He video calls Ammi every day to get her blessings. She always tells him, \u2018Hamesha tarakki kar, naam roshan kar’ (Keep growing, make us proud),\u201d said his brother, Mohammed Ismail<\/a>.Ismail added, \u201cAbbu used to say, \u2018Beta, ek din tujhe bahut naam kamana hai. India ke liye khelna hai.\u2019 When he passed away during the Australia tour, Siraj was shattered. But Ammi told him, \u2018Jo ho gaya, so ho gaya. Ab game pe dhyan do (What\u2019s done is done, now focus on your game).\u2019\u201dSiraj was in Australia when Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri gave him the heartbreaking news. Emotionally broken, Siraj found strength through his teammates and responded by becoming India\u2019s highest wicket-taker in the series, claiming 13 wickets in three Tests, including a five-wicket haul \u2014 a tribute to the man who believed in him the most.SIRAJ – A WORKHORSE\"Siraj,Where the focus had been on Jasprit Bumrah’s workload management and fact that he would play three Tests, Mohammed Siraj largely flew under the radar in that department.Since 2020, Siraj is the player with most matches played for India<\/a> – more than Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, R Ashwin and even Bumrah.ALSO READ | Mohammed Siraj: A warrior, who never stopped believing<\/a>As Bumrah played three Tests, as planned, Siraj bowled his heart out, regularly hitting the right areas, troubling batters, beating batters, getting edges, close LBW calls, elicit “ohhs” and “aaahs” from the crowd, and, as the fifth Test was evidence, kept the fans on the edge of their seats.Siraj bowled 1113 balls (185.3 overs) in the series \u2013 the most by any bowler.Siraj signed off the England Test series as the highest wicket-taker with 23 wickets.\"Siraj-Father-s\"<\/p>\n

Mohammed Siraj with his late father. (Image: Special Arrangement)<\/p>\n

“Abbu ke liye khelna hai, unka sapna jiyunga main. That’s what Siraj always says. Fitness is on another level for him now. And it is all because of Virat Kohli. He takes a lot of inspiration from Virat. He is more than his elder brother. The aggression and hunger, he has taken from Virat,” Ismail said.”In 2018, Siraj had a terrible IPL season. A lot of questions were raised, but at that time, Virat bhaia stood by him and supported him. He knew what qualities Siraj had. He backed Siraj and gave a lot of chances to him at both RCB and in the India team. All the credit goes to Virat bhaia. There have been times when Siraj has confessed that he owes his career to Virat bhai. And that’s absolutely true. He was fond of biryani, and now he eats it \u2013 and that too, rarely \u2013 after getting some pep talk from Virat bhaia,” he said.”Siraj is a different player now. After not being picked in the ICC Champions Trophy, Siraj was upset. Really upset. He was heartbroken. But he became a different person. He started practicing more and more. There was some hard training and a strict regime involved then. Now, the results are in front of us. That gap between the Champions Trophy and the IPL gave him a lot of time to train both mentally and physically. That period did him a lot of good. He then played the IPL and performed well, and now in England, he is the highest wicket-taker,” the brother said.BIG RONALDO FANAfter India\u2019s thrilling win at The Oval, Siraj revealed that on the morning of the match, he downloaded a picture of football star Cristiano Ronaldo. The image had the word \u201cBelieve\u201d written on it \u2014 and that single word became Siraj\u2019s source of motivation as he went on to play a key role in India’s historic win.Siraj\u2019s admiration for Ronaldo is no secret. Taking a wicket and celebrating with Ronaldo\u2019s iconic \u201cSiuuu\u201d celebration has become his trademark.\u201cHe has big posters of Ronaldo in his room. We live in a penthouse, and he\u2019s even built a mini-theatre there where he watches Ronaldo\u2019s matches. He never misses a single one. All we hear is his cheering and shouting whenever Ronaldo is playing,\u201d Siraj\u2019s brother Ismail signed off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India cricketer Mohammed Siraj with his mother and brother. (Image: Special Arrangement)Cricketer Mohammaed Siraj with his family. (Instagram)India…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,7052,25684,12511,25680,25681,23758,25682,25679,25683,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-45244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-ind-vs-eng","10":"tag-ind-vs-eng-5th-test","11":"tag-india-vs-england","12":"tag-mohammed-ghouse","13":"tag-mohammed-ismail","14":"tag-mohammed-siraj","15":"tag-mohammed-siraj-india","16":"tag-siraj","17":"tag-siraj-india-england","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}