The longest-running battle in the 2025 Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy came between Mohammed Siraj and Joe Root. Rahul Iyer writes on a captivating face-off that truly captured the essence of Test cricket.
Coming into the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, India would have foreseen Joe Root being their nemesis with bat in hand. A bonafide all-time great in the form of his life, on home turf is about as difficult as it gets.
In Jasprit Bumrah, they had the best fast bowler in the world, and someone who matched up particularly well to Root, having dismissed him nine times in Test cricket. That count went to ten and then eleven at Headingley and Lord’s.
But the battles were short, and sparse. Bumrah only played three Tests. In fact, only two quicks managed to take part in all five Tests. Chris Woakes was one of them, and he dislocated his shoulder on day one of the last match.
That made India’s Mohammed Siraj the last pacer standing. He and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja were the only two to bowl in each one of their team’s innings. Jadeja’s often-limited role in English conditions meant that only one bowler-batter pair faced off in every possible innings of the series: Siraj v Root.
Siraj’s rise in prominence during this series led to much gushing about his heart and his durability, in just playing all five games (“The best ability is availability”). In those platitudes, it can sometimes be forgotten that first and foremost, Siraj is an extremely talented and skilful bowler.
Root finished as the second-highest run-scorer in this series behind Shubman Gill, and was the only English batter to make over 500 runs. The head-to-head numbers make you wonder what the fuss is all about. Siraj only dismissed Root twice in nine innings, and 130 runs were scored at an average of 65. But dig a bit deeper, and you get a better picture of some of the travails Root had to go through.
In 222 balls contested between the pair, 62 were either missed or edged – essentially, almost twice every seven balls against Siraj, a bit of bad luck could have seen Root’s innings come to an end. But equally, from the batter’s side, this match-up became a matter of finding a way to tweak his method.
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Much of Root’s play in Test cricket has been built around his ability to rotate strike – something that can easily frustrate bowlers in the longest format, where they prefer to have a set of consecutive deliveries to bowl at one opponent. Root’s drop-and-run into a gap in the field, even off good deliveries, has been a trademark of his red-ball batting. But it was not uncommon in this series for Siraj to often get Root fishing outside his off-stump, having starved him of the opportunity for easy singles.
70.7 per cent of deliveries sent down in this series by Siraj to Root were dot balls. For context, Bumrah delivered 71 per cent (from less than half the total number). Nitish Kumar Reddy, delivered 74.2 per cent (from only 62 balls).
As the series went on, Root responded to being tied down with his own counter-punch. In the fashion befitting a Test batter of his stature, he gradually managed to punish Siraj more severely when the bowler wavered even slightly. Pitch it up, and he was driven through covers for four. Stray onto the pads, and it was four more.
What makes Mohammed Siraj such a threat?
Key to Siraj’s ability to trouble Root throughout was not his heart, but his skill. The two pivotal weapons in his arsenal are the outswinger, and the wobble-seam delivery. Perhaps more crucially, the extent of his usage of the two is an even greater skill.
In his own words, Siraj lost his inswinger in 2018. Since then, he has relied on his wobble-seam ball, which tends to nip in after pitching, to challenge batters on the inside edge. This delivery is more difficult to play than an inswinger, which starts its journey inwards right from the bowler’s hand.
What makes Siraj’s outswinger doubly dangerous is his tendency to angle the ball into the right-hander, which can cause them to play ever so slightly down the wrong line (Bumrah has often made use of his more exaggerated action in this fashion to dislodge Root).
When the pair first met in this series at Headingley, Siraj sent down five outswingers in a row. The first, third and fifth all beat Root on the outside edge, but the other two were left alone after they started too wide.
The wobble-seam remains his primary wicket-taking delivery, with the outswinger acting as a decoy of sorts – showing the batter that he can move it away as well, so they cannot default to simply planting the front pad outside the line of off stump (to prevent lbw), and defending an incoming ball. Across the first two Tests, there were only 40 deliveries in which they faced off. Bumrah and Akash Deep removed Root early twice, and in between Siraj ended one of his knocks with a strangle down the leg side.
Lord's: A tweak from Siraj, a test of patience for Root
The first innings at Lord’s saw the first extended matchup, as Root lasted long enough to face 41 balls from Siraj. Only eight were missed or edged.
Siraj’s modus operandi in the third Test was slightly more formulaic than usual, although not as clear to the eye in real time. When bowling from the Pavilion End, he employed the outswinger, against the slope of the ground, more often.
From the Nursery End, Siraj used the wobble-seam more often – again, against the slope, both perhaps stemming from the same line of thought; if he the ball did not do what he intended (for whatever reason), the slope could bring the other edge of the bat into play. Perhaps if another bowler had employed this, it might have prompted a comment or two on the good planning. But the perception of Siraj does not naturally lend itself to this.
Six of the eight deliveries that Root missed or edged in that innings came in the first half of his innings – suggesting that as time wore on, he had picked up on Siraj’s thinking and could largely pre-empt the delivery coming at him.
In the second innings, Root, as every other batter in the game, struggled more. Twelve of the 29 deliveries he faced from Siraj were misses or edges; but largely due to the amount of lateral movement and uneven bounce, rather than playing for the wrong delivery.
Root did not score quickly against Siraj in this Test – only 28 off 70 balls in all, but his crucial 104 in the first innings owed much to his ability to keep him and Bumrah at bay.
Old Trafford: No wicket, but a 'moral victory' for Siraj?
A placid Old Trafford pitch in the fourth Test led to a draw as England only batted once, and the match averaged 60.5 runs per wicket. Root made 150, but only 36 of the 248 balls he faced came from Siraj.
It’s perhaps testament to the bowler’s ability then, that even in those conditions, he managed to draw four edges, and beat the bat seven times – including thrice in a row with extra bounce after Root had scored 98, and faced 167 balls in the innings.
The Oval: Root bites back in clinical fashion
The fifth and final Test at The Oval saw a green-tinged wicket rolled out. If ever there was one track on which Siraj could trouble Root, this could well be one.
With further assistance from moisture in the wicket following a few short spells of rain, Siraj used the wobble-seam more liberally. His first ball to Root in this match took the inside edge, and the second one jagged back from well outside off to thud into Root’s thigh pad.
Siraj’s persistence paid off in his ninth over of the innings. The first two deliveries, both outswingers, were cashed in on as Root guided them to the third man fence for four. The next three, all wobble-seam, were marginally too straight – before he landed the fourth one perfectly, trapping Root in front for 29.
In the second innings, Root resorted to frequently advancing down the wicket, attempting to take lbw out of the equation. This was not new in the series, but was commensurate with Siraj’s increased attempt to challenge the inside of the bat more than the outside.
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While Root, and Yorkshire teammate Harry Brook, were helped by conditions easing out a touch during their partnership at breakneck speed, the former was at his clinical best against Siraj, who was easily the pick of the three Indian quicks on show.
Off 58 deliveries from Siraj, Root plundered 10 boundaries and a total of 45 runs, putting him away virtually every time he erred in line or length – usually when he was too full in pursuit of swing, or straying onto the pads with the in-seaming ball.
That’s not to say Siraj did not have his moments, though. Time and again, with his ability to move the ball both ways, he had Root playing tentatively, notably on the final ball of the 50th over, when, set on 50, Root prodded (rather than flashed) at an outswinger that Siraj had pitched perhaps fractionally too short. “Ahh Joe, hit it!” was the batter’s cry, caught on the stump mic, as he swung his bat in disgust.
As an aside, Harry Brook contributed 111 off 98 in that innings. But even he played it safer and more circumspect against Siraj for 13 off 21, instead brutally punishing Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep.
In the over before Root eventually nicked off to Krishna for a sublime 105, Siraj rapped him twice on the pads with the in-ducker, with height a factor in saving the batter on both occasions.
“He tries incredibly hard. He is a very skilful player,” Root said of Siraj at the end of day four at The Oval. “There is a reason why he's got the wickets he has, because one, his work ethic and two, his skill level. I enjoy playing against him.”
This series was one defined by no small amount of needle and words, even in the individual battles (see Akash Deep v Ben Duckett and Prasidh Krishna v Joe Root).
But across a month and a half, apart from one comment (“Come on, I want to see Bazball”) Siraj’s battles with Root made for a captivating display of Test cricket – the sport alone – encapsulating the best that this format has to offer; high skill over a long period of time, blended with sharp tactical acumen.
It was perhaps fitting, then, that neither one ended up on the losing side in the series.
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