“Virat bhai had supported me a lot” - Mohammed Siraj’s massive statement on leaving RCB for IPL 2025

Team India pacer Mohammed Siraj recently revealed that it was emotional for him to leave the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) ahead of IPL 2025. Siraj was part of the RCB setup for seven years since joining them as a youngster in 2018.

The 31-year-old fast bowler made his IPL debut for the SunRisers Hyderabad in 2017 and shifted base to Bengaluru the next year after RCB roped him in for ₹2.20 crore. He played 87 matches for the Royal Challengers and picked up 83 wickets with best figures of 4/21.

However, the franchise decided not to retain him and the Gujarat Titans swooped him up by shelling ₹12.25 crore at the mega auction last year.

Ahead of the new season, Mohammed Siraj stated that leaving Bengaluru was emotional for him given the support he has received from franchise legend Virat Kohli during difficult times, which helped grow in stature as a bowler.

“It’s a good feeling to join Gujarat ahead of the new season. Yeah, it was a bit emotional for me to leave RCB because Virat bhai had supported me a lot in tough times, but we have a fantastic team here under Gill,” Siraj told PTI via India Today.

Mohammed Siraj will lead Gujarat's pace attack in IPL 2025 after the franchise parted ways with Mohammad Shami. The Hyderabad-born seamer will pair up with Kagiso Rabada to lead GT's pace unit under the leadership of Shubman Gill.

The Titans will begin their IPL 2025 campaign on March 25 with a game against the Punjab Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

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Mohammed Siraj welcomes BCCI's decision to allow bowlers to use saliva on balls in IPL 2025

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to allow bowlers to use their saliva to shine the ball from IPL 2025 onwards. It was banned from IPL 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that took millions of lives.

Mohammed Siraj welcomed the move, saying (via the aforementioned report):

“It’s very good for bowlers. It's excellent news for us bowlers because when the ball is not doing anything, applying saliva on the ball will increase the chances of finding some reverse swing. It sometimes aids reverse swing because scrubbing the ball against the shirt will not help (to get reverse swing). But using saliva on the ball will help in maintaining (the shine on one side), and it is important."

The BCCI has also decided that skippers will no longer face match bans from this season. Instead, they will be penalized with demerit points, with a ban being enforced only in extreme cases.