Cricket has been a passion and obsession for Mohammed Siraj since his childhood. As a kid, he would often run away from his modest home in the Banjara Hills region to play tennis cricket, leaving his mother, Shabana Begum furious. 

“Yeh baccha bahut tang karta tha [this boy troubled me a lot],” Shabana had said during one of her early interviews in 2016. From a troublesome son to the nation’s hero, however, the 31-year-old fast bowler has made his parents, state and nation proud.

Hailing from a poor background [his father, late Mohammed Ghaus, was an autorickshaw driver while his mother worked as a helper at former Ranji opener 
Abdul Azeem’s home], Siraj literally emerged from gully cricket. He would bowl fast, be with it a tennis ball or leather ball.