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Cricket PlayersLeft in the dark: Mohammed Siraj’s baffling treatment raises alarming questions over India’s World Cup planning
Mohammed Siraj has featured in just four ODIs this year, raising several questions on India's planning ahead of the World Cup.
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It was just last year when Mohammed Siraj took up the mantle as the leader of India’s pace attack in Jasprit Bumrah’s absence, inspiring India to a famous win at The Oval against England. During the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy, Siraj unlocked another gear in his bowling, playing all five Tests and relentlessly troubling the opposition without a break. The speedster was relentless throughout, giving the batters no respite. Remarkably, his pace never dropped either. He cranked it up whenever India needed him to step up, with all his efforts finally materialising on the last day of the series, when he consistently bowled above 140 kmph to rattle the lower order. When India famously drew the series 2-2, much of the chatter centred on how they had found another bowler, apart from Bumrah, they could rely on.
However, the story is completely different 14 months on. The handling of the pacer has left a huge question mark, to the extent that even the 2027 World Cup remains a bridge too far. If last year was about Siraj not being given enough rest, 2026 has hardly given him enough game time.
After the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 campaign with the Gujarat Titans, Siraj played the meaningless one-off Test against Afghanistan in hot and placid conditions in Mullanpur. He entered the contest after a gruelling season with the Titans, which stretched all the way to the final. Against Afghanistan, Siraj bowled just 13 overs in total, taking one wicket.
In an ideal scenario, Siraj could have done with some rest against Afghanistan, given the ample assistance for the spinners - he wasn't needed to bowl the hard overs anyway. Then, the pacer was handed a two-month break, which saw him miss the ODIs against Afghanistan and England, the England T20Is, and the Zimbabwe T20Is. With the World Cup just a year away, Siraj has played remarkably few 50-over matches in 2026, raising the question: Is he actually even in the team management's plans?
Lack of game time in ODIs
India have so far played four ODI series this year against New Zealand, Afghanistan, England and the West Indies, with Siraj featuring in only four of the potential 12 matches, bowling a total of 35 overs. With Bumrah unavailable for the majority of these series, the management tried out Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Prince Yadav, Harshit Rana, Auqib Nabi and Anshul Kamboj. Amid all this experimentation, Siraj was in the dark.
He was brought back for the West Indies series, but was surprisingly rested in Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati before finally getting a chance in the Mullanpur dead rubber. India captain Shubman Gill gave Siraj just eight overs in the third ODI, in which he gave away 52 runs while taking one wicket. However, the biggest surprise was the pacer’s underutilisation in the death when the game was hanging in the balance. Gill tried out Kamboj, Kuldeep and Naman Dhir, but Siraj wasn't called upon, as the Windies cruised home. This brings back memories of 2025, when Siraj was dropped for the Champions Trophy, and then-captain Rohit Sharma said his effectiveness declines when he isn't bowling with the new ball.
Siraj has been a remarkably improved bowler in white-ball cricket, and his previous two IPL seasons are proof enough, with 35 wickets combined across the 2025 and 2026 editions. The curious case of Siraj mirrors Mohammed Shami's situation before the 2023 ODI World Cup. The seasoned Indian pacer hadn't played many matches leading into the tournament, and his inclusion in the eventual World Cup playing XI was down to Hardik Pandya's injury. In fact, Shami had featured in just 12 ODIs in 2023 before the tournament, but even by that standard, Siraj is behind, having played just four games this year.
How Siraj is different from Shami
However, Shami never had a problem cranking it up despite not getting enough game time. Siraj, though, is wired differently. In August 2026, much was made of the drop in his pace during the two Tests against Sri Lanka. He even admitted that it was down to a lack of game time and two months of rest. Siraj, who had consistently managed to touch 140-142 kmph, was bowling well within himself in the two Tests, with his speeds dropping to 125-130 kmph. He marginally increased the pace again in the Duleep Trophy final against East Zone, bowling in the range of 135 kmph for South Zone.
"I'm purely a rhythm bowler. If I'm not in sync, I can't explode through the crease. That was the struggle in Sri Lanka; my run-up felt disjointed. Some strides were too short, others were too long, and that broke my flow and cost me pace. Every bowler's body is different, but mine doesn't handle long breaks well," he said.
“A short break is fine, but in my ten-year career, I had never taken two full months off," he added.
Pace coming back
Siraj is slowly and steadily getting into a rhythm, and the proof was in the pudding. He bowled at an average speed of 137 kmph in the final ODI against the Windies and even clocked 141.2 kmph, his highest in recent months. But the pacer's recent form leaves much to be desired, and the Indian team management risks losing a workhorse. Giving Siraj clarity over his role is the need of the hour, especially after India leaked runs throughout all three ODIs against the West Indies, with the opposition chasing down more than 350 in the final match with 10 balls to spare.
If Siraj remains in the team's plans for the World Cup, he must play in at least 80 per cent of the matches leading up to the tournament in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, where the Men in Blue open their campaign against Australia on October 7 in Cape Town.
