HYDERABAD: Virat Kohli missed three of the four-Test matches Down Under due to paternity leave but he will be one of the most satisfied guys as one of his wards used sheer pace to beat the Australians at their own game. Kohli invested in Mohammed Siraj at the Royal Challengers Bangalore and it paid rich dividends for Team India. Siraj’s brother Mohammed Ismail was all praise for the Indian skipper as he spoke to TOI at length about his brother’s nascent career.
Excerpts:
Siraj idolizes Virat Kohli
Virat bhai is the only cricketer that Siraj looks up to. Virat has been a pillar of strength for Siraj. He backed him a lot even when his performances were not too good at the RCB in the previous two years. Virat bhai and the RCB management put their trust in Siraj and retained him. They didn’t discard him. Virat spoke to him often about maintaining a consistent line and length. Hence, Virat has played a big role in Siraj’s success.

Foundation laid by parents
We are grateful to our parents for helping us reach this position in life. They sacrificed a lot for us so that we could have a decent living and proper studies. It is very satisfying for my mother to see Siraj grow in stature and do well for the country. She is very proud of what he has achieved thus far in his cricket career. The last two months have been very tough for the family with the loss of my father but Siraj’s show has elevated the pain quite a lot.

Mother turns pillar of strength
Siraj calls up mom regularly and speaks to her. Siraj’s performance has substantially increased because of my mom. We lost our biggest support in life with the demise of our father and he is irreplaceable. In such a situation, the way our mother handled all of us was really commendable. Hence, it’s undoubtedly because of the strength Siraj derived from our mom that he has been performing so very consistently.

Test cricket is real cricket
This was my father’s dream. He always wanted Siraj to represent India in Test cricket. One-day cricket and T20 are good formats but Test cricket is the actual game as it tests the skills of the players to the fullest. It is the actual test. The dream was fulfilled but the person, whose dream it was, is not there to savour these moments with all of us. Hence, there is a mixed atmosphere in our house – mourning because of my father’s death as well as elation because of Siraj’s performance which has helped India clinch the Test series. My father always used to say that in one-day cricket and T20 cricket a batsman can score runs even off a good ball but in Test cricket one’s actual caliber comes to the fore.

Father backed Siraj to the hilt
From our childhood we have seen our parents sacrifice so much to bring us up. My father was the biggest supporter for Siraj. He always encouraged him and wanted him to pursue his passion for cricket. He never tried to stop Siraj from playing the game. He always told him that he would support him as long as he wanted to play cricket. Hence, it’s my father’s sacrifice and hard work that is paying off in the form of success that Siraj is achieving.
No interest in studies
Cricket, cricket and cricket alone has been Siraj’s passion and interest. Apart from it, he has not looked at anything else. He was so caught up with the game that he even went to the extent of skipping his board exams. When we used to ask him how he wrote his exam, he would say well. But when he got the certificate, we saw that it was marked absent. He then confessed that he went to play a gully match.
Not surprised by Siraj’s performance
We were sure that Siraj would scale new heights in this series. It was only a matter of time before he struck big and we were waiting for that moment. We knew that he would come up with something special in the series.

After winning the Border–Gavaskar Trophy, team India coach Ravi Shastri said “Feeling defeated is one thing but giving up is not in our vocabulary, team showed it. Virat (Kohli) may not be here but his character and personality stamp is there for everyone to see in the team as well. For Ajinkya (Rahane) to take over the way he did was simply unreal.” India won the fourth and final test match of the series against Australia, at The Gabba in Brisbane and retained the Border–Gavaskar Trophy.

BRISBANE: An amalgamation of fascinating life stories that scripted one of the most memorable moments in the history of Indian cricket.
The men who humbled Australia in their own backyard, defying odds and naysayers, are not the ones staring from the billboards in manic metro cities but shy, quiet and unassuming characters from the suburbs and the hinterlands.

These are strong character artists of an author-backed film rather than mega stars with bulging biceps of 200-crore potboilers.
We present back stories of the magnificent bunch which gave Indian cricket ‘a win to remember’ for ages to come.
Rishabh Pant
Roorkee has always been known for its finest engineering college, now an IIT but this is also the hometown of Rishabh Pant, son of school owner parents. There was a time that on occasions a young Pant, accompanied by his mother would reach Delhi in wee hours of morning on weekends to attend training at the famed Sonnet Club and before the crack of dawn rest at the Gurdwara before heading to the ground. He played an IPL game days after his father Rajendra’s sudden demise.

Mohammed Siraj
Son of an auto-rickshaw driver from Hyderabad’s Lancer. He lost his father during the tour but decided to stay for the team and miss the last rites. He got a maiden five for in his debut series and was all choked up while dedicating the feat to the memory of his father. The youngster handled racist abuse from Australian fans with the same resolve.
Navdeep Saini
Son of a bus driver from Karnal, he used to play tennis ball matches for Rs 1000. Delhi first-class player Sumit Narwal brought him for the Ranji Trophy nets where then captain Gautam Gambhir picked him for tournament-proper. It was met with stiff resistance from none other than Bishan Singh Bedi who protested that a player outside Delhi domicile was being picked. This led to Gambhir putting his foot down and he never missed an opportunity to remind the detractors what Saini seemed capable of even at that time.
Shubman Gill
The heir apparent of Virat Kohli was born in a Punjab village called Fazilka to an affluent farmer family. His grandfather had prepared a pitch in the farming field for his dearest grandson before his father decided to shift to Mohali so that his son’s cricketing ambitions got wings. He was a member of the India U-19 World Cup team. Recently, on his instagram account, he had voiced his support for ongoing farmers’ protest.
Cheteshwar Pujara
The man from Rajkot is not very expressive but has dealt with adversity because of a strong mental make-up largely due to his coach and father Arvind Pujara. He lost his mother while playing junior cricket but never wavered from his goal despite the tragedy. Those hits on the body and knuckles in Brisbane on Tuesday will be the medals he would like to wear all his life.
Shardul Thakur
He comes from Palghar and as a 13-year-old had hit six sixes for his school Vivekananda International Borivali in a Harris Shield Match. Who is the most celebrated alumni of Vivekananda International? India’s white ball legend Rohit Sharma. Both Shardul and Rohit have had the same childhood coach — Dinesh Lad, whose son Siddharth also plays for Mumbai.
Washington Sundar
The name Washington was his father’s tribute to his own mentor PD Washington, who had funded his studies and kits when he was young and faced financial hardships. A month after PD Washington’s death, his own son was born and he named him Washington Sundar.
He was an opening batsman back in 2016 during U-19 days. But his talent as an off-break bowler came to fore when Rahul Dravid and Paras Mhambrey told him to focus on his bowling in order to make the next grade. But batting remains his first love and India now has a ready replacement of Ravichandran Ashwin as and when required.
Thangarasu Natarajan
From the remote village of Chinnappampatti in Tamil Nadu, the son of a daily wage labourer at one point in time couldn’t buy bowling spikes. And then IPL riches came along but he never forgot his roots.
He has built a cricket academy in his native place and helps talented but needy cricketers. His child was born during the IPL but he will now get to see him for the first time in the next few days and live to tell a tale.
Ajinkya Rahane(Captain)
The everyday man on that Mumbai local train travelling from Mulund to Azad and Cross Maidan. Rahane is someone who had a black belt in karate as a teenager, and honed his skills under former India batsman Praveen Amre.
Did you know that Rahane’s first ever first-class match was in Pakistan and not India? It was in Karachi where Quaid-e-Azam champions Karachi Urbans met Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai.