England spinner Shoaib Bashir rose to the occasion and picked up the much-needed wicket of Mohammed Siraj against India at Lord's to hand his team a hard-fought 22-run victory. This win saw the hosts take a 2-1 lead in the five-match Test series which was quite important for them heading into the fourth game.
Bashir, who was ruled out of the remainder of the series due to a finger injury that he sustained at Lord's, revealed that he wasn't able to clearly see the wicket of Siraj as the ball had went on to clip the bails from a side which wasn't quite visible to the spinner.
“We got Joe Root to come into silly point to put pressure on Siraj and I just tried to put as many revs on that ball as I could. Luckily, it popped from a length and when it hit his bat [and down into the ground], everyone was just looking, ‘Where is it?’ Bashir said while speaking to The Sunday Times.
“From my angle, I couldn’t see [the bail come off]. My reaction was off a lot of other people’s reactions. I was just relieved. That feeling will stay with me forever, at the home of cricket, in front of a packed crowd. It doesn’t get better," he added.
Siraj's wicket was one of the most memorable moments from the series for England as it came when they needed it the most. Chasing 193, the Men in Blue had gotten restricted to 112/8 on Day 5 at one stage and looked certain to face a heavy defeat. However, Ravindra Jadeja formed important partnerships with both Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj to take the visitors quite close to the target. The match was eventually decided in the final session of the day with Siraj getting dismissed for four runs and India getting bundled out for 170.
England's next Test opponent will be Australia
Meanwhile, England's next red-ball assignment will be The Ashes where they will face arch-rivals Australia in a five-match series from November 21. It remains to be seen if Bashir will be able to fully recover by that time and get picked in the Three Lions' squad for the highly-important assignment.