On the back of twin centuries from maverick batter Virat Kohli and future superstar Shubman Gill, India demolished Sri Lanka by a historic margin of 317 runs in the third ODI at the Greenfield International Stadium in Trivandrum on January 15 (Sunday). As a result, the Men in Blue whitewashed the Islanders 3-0 in the three-match ODI series.
Kohli remained unbeaten on 166 runs off 110 balls while Shubman Gill scored 116 runs off 97 balls. Kohli and Gill guided the team to a massive total of 390/5. With the ball, it was Mohammed Siraj who shone, with a brilliant spell of 4/32 to dismiss the Sri Lankans for a paltry 73 in 22 overs.
With the win, India stormed into the history books as they now hold the record of registering the largest win (in terms of runs) in ODIs.
After the game, Siraj spoke at length about the certain tweaks he has made to his game which has resulted in the latest surge. The right-arm pacer stressed upon the use of wobble seam and how the unpredictably comes in handy.
"With wobbled seam, how much the ball will do neither I know nor the batter. Sometimes it goes straight after pitching other times it can come in sharply. Most of my wickets come through wobbled seam. It is effective for me and I trust it to work for me," said Siraj after the third ODI.
"Inswing was my natural earlier but then it stopped so I also developed outswing. When I did not have the inswing, I developed the wobbled seam. It took a lot of time to get effective and give me confidence. The more I bowled in the nets, the better I got. In the IPL, I spoke to Dale Steyn as well for outswing which helped me a lot," he added.
Siraj bowled exceedingly well in the recently-concluded series against the Islanders. The right-arm pacer was menacing with the new ball and was the pick of all bowlers. He ended the series as the leading wicket-taker (9) and his economy rate of 4.06 was also the best among all bowlers.
The 28-year-old reflected on how he changed his mindset after enduring rough Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
"When the IPL season went bad for me, I started focussing on white ball cricket. I worked on it and grew in confidence. I stopped worrying about how my performance would go which was not case earlier. I started focussing only on execution of line and length," he added.
Siraj will next be seen in action against New Zealand as India's next assignment is versus the Black Caps, starting January 18.
