Siraj currently stands as one of the finest bowlers in India, having won over audiences and experts with his large-than-life performances and passion for the game. Since making his Test debut, the Hyderabad fast bowler has picked up 36 Test wickets in 12 matches, including starring in the historic overseas wins at The Gabba and Lord’s.

The 27-year-old talks extensively about the hardships he faced as a young child, where finances were limited. His father was an auto-rickshaw driver, and his mother a domestic help. Despite the extra costs of playing cricket, Siraj mentions how his father, in particular, always backed his son’s dreams. He said: “My dad would always say ‘make your country proud, play for your country.’ My mother would always ask me to concentrate on studies, saying, ‘Look, the elder brother is an engineer, the younger brother is nothing yet…let him work to become someone. Don’t say later that we did everything for the elder brother, and nothing for you’. I used to say ‘Don’t worry, mother. Whatever I do, I’ll do well’.”

“I would keep thinking when I’ll be able to [bring] my parents some peace. The thinking was that whatever I am doing, it is for them.”

“My father used to stop me from getting hit [reprimanded] whenever I came home late after playing with my friends. When I went out, he would keep money for me separately.”

It was therefore heartbreaking for Siraj when his father passed away in November 2020, with Siraj receiving the news of the death while in quarantine in Australia. In two minds about going back home or staying with the squad, the bowler decided to overcome the pain and play with all his heart to fulfil his father’s dream.

However, the period of mourning was a tumultuous one for him, confined in his hotel room Down Under. “My dad wasn’t very well in 2020. When I would talk to him, he would end up crying, so I wouldn’t talk to him much, because when he would cry, it would be another feeling (sic).

“When the IPL ended, no one told me that my dad’s health was deteriorating so seriously. When I would call home, they would say that my father was sleeping, so I would let him rest. When I landed in Australia, I was told my dad was so serious and in a critical condition. I argued so much with my family members, asking why I wasn’t told about his condition before, but they said they didn’t want it to affect my career and my game. ‘So what?’ I would say, “I would’ve come and met him.”

“After that, dad spoke to me, and said ‘It’s nothing like that [serious], I’m fine. Come back home soon, we’ll sit and talk, have meals together’. I said, ‘Yes, papa. Get well soon’.

“Then, dad said: ‘Son, just make the nation proud, I am with you. Don’t take tension, just make the country proud. When dad passed away, I’d made up my mind to return to India that very day. But he told me to make India proud, which is why I stayed back, otherwise, I would have come back.”

Siraj, however, had to go through the pain alone while in Australia due to the strict quarantine rules in place. He said: “I can’t even explain what I went through, it was such a tough situation. I couldn’t go to anyone’s room, neither could anyone enter mine, they had stationed policemen outside every door. BCCI had also asked if I wanted to go home… those 14 days, how I managed myself, Allah only knows. I don’t know myself.”

During the Test series, the visuals of Siraj wiping away his tears after the national anthem went viral, which Siraj says was in remembrance of his father. “After my debut performance at the MCG, when I was reading [singing] the national anthem in Sydney, I just remembered how my dad said that I need to make [the nation] proud…I wish he was alive, he would have been so proud. Whenever I had done well previously, and there was my photo in the newspaper, he would take cut-outs [to keep as memory]. That suddenly clicked in my head.”

Siraj eventually went on to grab a total of 13 wickets in Australia, including his maiden five-for in Brisbane in just his third Test, playing a huge role in India’s series win.