"Someone like a Rohit or Virat needs to go up to him" - Mark Taylor feels a match ban could be in store for Siraj after his antics
Former Australia captain Mark Taylor feels that Mohammed Siraj needs to curb his aggression a touch for his own sake, and urged senior players to stage a conversation with him. The Indian pacer engaged in verbal battles with Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head during the ongoing second Test in Adelaide, and earned the crowd's wrath after an animated send-off to the latter.
Siraj's theatrics and tussles with opposition batters have been part of his armory. He has engaged in numerous scuffles in his career, as part of his aggression act, but his antics in this match have been slammed by pundits. The likes of Sunil Gavaskar and David Warner remarked that it was poor judgement on Siraj's part to go ballistic after Head had slammed a magnificent hundred.
Earlier, Siraj had thrown the ball at Labuschagne after the batter had pulled out of his stance at the last minute due to a disturbance behind the sight screen. The record crowd at the Adelaide Oval made their feelings known by jeering Siraj whenever he had the ball.
Mark Taylor opined that while he admires Siraj's competitive nature, he needs to stop taking things too far.
“I like his competitive nature, he’s a fine bowler… I don’t like the fact that when he hits a guy on the pads, and he thinks he’s got him out LBW, he continues to run down the pitch, past the batsman, almost gets to the keeper and then looks around to the umpire to see if he’s going to give it out," Taylor said on the Willow Talk podcast (Via Roar).
“That’s got to stop, and if it doesn’t stop shortly, someone – and it’ll be the umpires or the match referee – might stop it for him, and give him a game off. We don’t want that," he added
Much like Warner's suggestion on-air, Taylor feels that senior players need to intervene and talk some sense into the bowler. Siraj shares a cordial bond with Virat Kohli, often his partner when it comes to exhibiting aggression. The former skipper was stationed at mid-off at one stage while the pacer was bowling, and was constantly in his ear.
“Someone like a Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli needs to go up to him, and say ‘mate, yeah be excited, be aggressive, get in batsmen’s face, love all that, but that is disrespecting the game and the umpire’,” Taylor added.
Siraj finished with figures of 4-98 in the second innings, dismissing the left-handed pair of Alex Carey and Travis Head, before cleaning up the tail.
"If that's how they want to represent themselves, then so be it" - Travis Head on Mohammed Siraj's send off
Siraj's yorker to castle Head, and the ensuing send-off, was apparently the final straw for several. The left-handed batter expressed his displeasure over the incident where he was provoked into responding, leading to some ugly scenes out in the middle.
"I said, 'well bowled,' but he thought otherwise when he pointed me towards the sheds. He got a little bite back from me. Slightly disappointed with the way that transpired. It is what it is. If they want to react like that, and if that's how they want to represent themselves, then so be it," Head told Fox Cricket.
India began Day 3 on the worst possible note as Rishabh Pant failed to add anything to his overnight score. Mitchell Starc struck in the very first over of the day to reduce the visitors to 128-6.