Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra showered praise on Mohammed Siraj after Gujarat Titans claimed an eight-wicket win against Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru in the ongoing IPL 2025 on Wednesday.
Siraj got two wickets of Phil Salt and Devdutt Padikkal in the Powerplay overs and dismissed Liam Livingstone, who top-scored with 54 runs, in his second spell. Thus, the former RCB pacer returned with impressive figures of 3-19 in his quota of four overs and bagged the Player of the Match.
In fact, Jos Buttler dropped an easy catch of his compatriot Phil Salt in the very first over of the innings on the bowling of Siraj after Shubman Gilld decided to bowl first.
“The two big stories were Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna. Mohammed Siraj – welcome back, he returned home and bowled incredibly well. Cricket is a game of emotions. Mohammed Siraj is an emotional guy, but he doesn’t play emotionally. You don’t get carried away,” Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.
“Emotions shouldn’t get the better of you, and when we saw Mohammed Siraj, it seemed like he was cranking it up. He was bowling fast and going till 145 kph. He was bowling gun-barrel straight. Phil Salt got a life as well, but then the ball went and hit his stumps. He was outstanding,” he added.
The former Delhi player also praised Prasidh Krishna, who conceded only 26 runs and dismissed Tim David on the last ball of the innings. Krishna had bagged also two wickets against Mumbai Indians in the last game.
“Prasidh Krishna bowled an over in the powerplay but then bowled a lot with the old ball. He has not been used as a new-ball bowler. You see Ashish Nehra’s imprint in that. He knows how to extract the best from everyone. No one is bowling slower ones, and he is not asking Prasidh Krishna to bowl full and get the ball to swing,” Chopra observed.
RCB could only post a sub-par total of 169 runs on the board and Chopra added that the home team could not put enough runs.
“You didn’t score the runs that should have been scored. That is the end of the story. The truth is that all teams will feel slightly guilty as they are not pacing their innings well. They start as though they are sitting atop a flying horse, crash-land suddenly, and then try to get up,” he said in the same video.
However, the cricket analyst gave credit to Tim David and Liam Livingstone, who helped RCB in posting a fighting score.
“However, unlike KKR and SRH, they at least played the entire 20 overs. Tim David came in the end and hit a few decent shots. Before that, Liam Livingstone saved their honor a little, and they reached at least a fighting total,” Chopra observed.
Gujarat Titans will next take on Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Sunday.
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