Siraj Magic!
Upright Seam
Cross-seam (Cross seam)
Wobble Seam
Mohammad Sami is the only one who can bowl the upright seam in the picture. Bumrah can bowl both up-right and cross seam. Mohammed Siraj is the only one who can bowl in all three seams.
The seam is nothing but the seam above the ball. The trick of bowling lies in how we use this stitch.
One more thing to know before going into Diu. When the seam of the ball hits the pitch the ball bounces, violently and sometimes in unexpected directions. When the non-seam part of the same ball hits the pitch, the ball slips and goes low.
Mohammad Siraj uses the up-right seam in picture one to out-swing.
He uses the cross seam in the second picture to inbound the ball. Will the ball seam on the pitch when bowled in this cross seam? Either the batsman or the bowler does not know whether it will hit the non-seam area. So it reacts accordingly!
In this way he uses the seam of the ball in two ways to bowl the ball in and out to create two different effects. He sets the batsmen up to be this way and that and beats the batsmen in one way or another.
Next is the wobble seam in picture three. The difference between this and the other two seams is that when catching the ball in an upright seam or a cross seam, our middle finger and index finger spread over the seam are held loosely apart from each other, not side by side.
Well, the third effect of throwing like this is that the walking child will move left and right towards that direction. In this wobble seam keep the fingers apart and loose on the seam of the ball and when thrown in the air, the ball will swing left and right in the movement of the puppeteer and will fall to the ground left or right, on the seam or non-seam areas and react accordingly!
Controlling Mohammed Siraj, especially with the new ball, is a huge challenge for batsmen as he creates three unexpected outcomes with three different seams!
Not only this, Mohammad Siraj has also been working on his bowling length. He manages to land six consecutive balls in an over. That means his muscles are naturally used to it. He has trained his muscles to such an extent!
Another thing that amazes me about Mohammad Siraj at this point is that it doesn’t seem like any bowling talent he has is natural. He has struggled and learned all this!
