When the Royal Challengers Bengaluru announced their retentions, a few fans were surprised that Mohammed Siraj missed out. Ultimately, a loss of form lead to this decision being taken. While there is no doubt over Siraj’s quality, would he be worth the 11-14 crores they would be paying was the main question RCB were surrounded by.
And they decided he would not be worth it. Amid this discourse about Siraj, there is a chance that Bengaluru get him back as an RTM option in the auction, with the dynamics and loss of form making sure they could easily get him for 30% cheaper if not more.
The question remains, what were the Royal Challengers Bengaluru expecting from Siraj, what role was he meant to play for their side? That can be answered simply, just by looking at the phases in which he bowled his overs.
Mohammed Siraj bowls 47.47% in powerplay, 21.03% in middle overs, and 31.49% in death overs for RCB.
Looking at the data from Spoda.ai it is clear, Siraj was their strike bowler in the Powerplay, bowling two in the powerplay more often than not, one at the death and at times an over in the middle overs looking to break a partnership.
| Team/Player | Phase | Bowling Avg | Economy | Dot % |
| RCB | Powerplay | 37.48 | 9.45 | 40.11% |
| Siraj | Powerplay | 38.0 | 8.54 | 50.93% |
| RCB | Middle | 36.43 | 9.12 | 27.22% |
| Siraj | Middle | 23.11 | 8.00 | 36.53% |
| RCB | Death | 27.74 | 9.91 | 31.96% |
| Siraj | Death | 29.79 | 10.42 | 39.16% |
Siraj compared to the rest of the RCB attack!
The only phase Siraj has managed to excel in, is the one where he is used the least often, and the one where teams look to see the main bowler off, in the Middle.
Siraj has managed to keep the runs down in the Powerplay, but his potency in terms of taking a wicket remained the same as his Team, he was on par, and as someone who usually bowls 2 overs upfront in the Powerplay, this simply was not good enough.
His performance at the death is poor compared to the rest of the attack, where they combine and do better than Siraj. While Siraj may bowl more dot balls, his high economy coupled with a higher dot ball count indicates he leaks boundaries more often.
Siraj has conceded 1.5 boundaries per over bowled in the Powerplay this season, while this number has been 1.4 for Arshdeep Singh, 1.07 for Trent Boult, 0.9 for Bumrah and 1.4 for Bhuvneshwar Kumar as well.
The major difference was with the economies for these players in the Powerplay as well, where Arshdeep went at 8.81, Boult at 7.03, Bumrah at 6 and Bhuvneshwar at 8.18, while Siraj was conceding 9.46 runs an over, in the role he specifically plays for RCB.
A similar issue plagued him in the Death Overs, where he was conceding 1.4 boundaries an over, while players like Mateesha Pathirana (0.95), Jasprit Bumrah (0.69), Harshal Patel (1.26) and Mohit Sharma (1.21) fared much better.
In the table below, you can see, the percentage of dot balls bowled by Khaleel, Siraj, Rabada, Pathirana and Rashid are very similar, but Pathirana and Rashid stand out because of their ability to not concede boundaries.
This in turns leads to a lower economy for Pathirana and Rashid while the rest including Siraj have travelled at economies over 10 an over. Highlighting how bowling dot balls isn't all you have to do, you need to be clever in how you manage the balls where the batters do score of you.
The culmination of Mohammed Siraj's performances through the Powerplay and the Death Overs has led to his monetary value falling, with RCB likely to retain him using the RTM option for much cheaper or in an extreme case, completely pass over him and find out a better local option for the Powerplay and the Death Overs.
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