Virat handing new ball to me boosted confidence: Siraj on "magical" IPL performance
Abu Dhabi: Royal Challengers Bangalore pacer Mohammed Siraj, who ripped through Kolkata Knight Riders' top-order with a "magical performance", said skipper Virat Kohli's surprise decision to hand him the new ball lifted his confidence in the IPL match here.
Siraj's first three wickets came without conceding a run as he became the first bowler in IPL history to bowl two maidens in a single game. RCB restricted KKR to a paltry 84/8 and chased down the target in 13.3 overs.
Once Chris Morris generated swing early on, Siraj was asked to bowl the second over following a discussion with wicketkeeper AB de Villiers.
"We hadn't planned that I would open but when we went out, Virat bhai said 'Miyan, ready ho jao (Sir, get ready!), you will have to bowl...' It boosted my confidence," the Hyderabadi pacer, who returned with figures of 4-2-8-3, said after the eight-wicket win on Wednesday.
"Morris beat the batsmen (in the first over) and then Virat bhai spoke to AB de Villiers (behind the stumps) and gave me the bowl," he added.
"Initially, I didn't think it would swing so much after seeing the wicket. I just backed my strength and really enjoyed a lot."
Brought in the second over, Siraj struck in his third ball with a good length ball that went away of Rahul Tripathi.
In his next delivery, he cleaned up Nitish Rana, with a ball that sharply cut back in and breached the left-hander's defence. In the next over, he accounted for Tom Banton with another outswing delivery.
His bowling figures became the most economical this season. A natural in-swing bowler, Siraj has been practising with the new ball and generating outswing in the practice sessions.
"I've been a natural inswing bowler but while practising I have started bowling outswing a lot better.
"In our practise sessions, we have Devdutt Padikkal and Parthiv Patel. I bowl the same length to them which I bowled to Nitish Rana. I did the same thing in the game and was able to execute it well," he said.
Having endured a tough outing against the same side in 2019, it's now a story of going from being zero to hero for Siraj.
Siraj was hammered for 36 runs in 2.2 overs before being removed from the attack for bowling two beamers as KKR chased down 206 with five balls to spare in their IPL 2019 match.
In the same game, Siraj had also dropped a sitter from Chris Lynn and faced a lot a criticism.
Often sidelined in presence of Chris Morris, Navdeep Saini and the spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar, Siraj got his fourth match on Wednesday when he was included in place of Shahbaz Ahmed.
"I've always had a lot of support from the RCB setup. All I wanted to do this year was give a magical performance. I wanted to do something different this year," Siraj, who played his fourth match of the season, said.
"Whenever I used to think about my performance in the IPL, I had made up my mind that I would deliver a performance to remember. It's about doing something different, something magical," he concluded.
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Crimes against women, sexual violence increased under Modi govt: Report
"Nari Shakti: Myth and Reality" report released by Bahutva Karnataka, Naveddu Nilladiddare Karnataka
Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked “Nari Shakti” during the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ in 2022. Now, Bahutva Karnataka in collaboration with Naveddu Nilladiddare Karnataka, has announced the release of "Nari Shakti: Myth and Reality", a report on the status of women under the Modi government.
"Nari Shakti: Myth and Reality" looks into the status of women in India over the past decade, focusing on five primary areas: violence against women, women’s rights, dignity and agency, economic empowerment, social empowerment, and political representation. Drawing upon credible data, including government sources, the report examines the ground realities faced by women against the backdrop of the prevailing rhetoric.
“The objective of the report is to use this information to hold those in power accountable and to inform public opinion as they make an informed choice in the ongoing general elections. Bahutva Karnataka in collaboration with Naveddu Nilladiddare Karnataka encourages all parties, in power or otherwise, to take note of these report cards and respond to the same,” the report added.
The report notes with concern that crimes against women and sexual violence have increased in the last decade. Analysing fund usage under the Nirbhaya Fund, a critical initiative for improving women’s safety, the report highlights how key schemes have been underfunded, undermining women’s security in India. The report also presents concrete instances of violence against women. Despite its public utterances regarding women’s safety, the Government has not only refrained from condemning the violence, remaining mute spectators as in the case of Manipur, but in many instances, it appears to have condoned the violence, especially when the accused have been political leaders from their own party or the victims have been from minority or Dalit communities.
“Various new laws such as UCC, Triple Talaq, Criminal Laws, Anti-conversion Laws seem to be driven by motives other than that of gender justice and and some of them are becoming tools that can be used to legitimize moral policing by vigilante groups and the State while infantilizing women and depriving them of any agency,” the report notes.
“The performance of the government on the front of “economic empowerment” too has proved to be abysmal the reports states. Analysing data related to female LFPR (Labour Force Participation Rate) and employment generating schemes like MNREGA and NRLM or schemes for financial inclusion like Pradhan Mantri Dhan Jan Yojana and Mudra it seems clear that none of these have led to any substantial degree of economic empowerment for the rural and urban power women. On the other hand it is clear that unorganized/informal work areas dominated by women like that of ASHA workers continues to be devalued and undervalued by casting it within the framework of care work, domestic work and voluntary work,” it added.
The report analyses through the gender lens some of the flagship schemes introduced as part of the BJP’s commitment to “Women’s Empowerment and Welfare”. One primary finding is that the big picture seems to be missing in several of these schemes such as SBA, PMUY, and PMMY where the metrics being quoted as signs of success do not give an honest representation of the scheme’s impact or success. Looking at CAG and other related reports the report concludes that while the media advocacy on the issues have undoubtedly yielded some favourable results in terms of improved sex ratios this seems to have fed more into image building of the government at the cost of long term structural and institutional transformations in the lives of the women who are supposed to be the “beneficiaries” of the schemes.
Finally the report examines the performance of the Government on the issue of political empowerment looking particularly at the Women’s Reservation Bill apart from the ways in which women in politics are treated. The report concludes that while the Women’s Reservation Bill might seek to guarantee women’s equal and fair representation in politics at some imaginary point in the future, what is lacking in the present is the political will to establish institutional arrangements and an inclusive climate that will enable women across communities to act independently without depending on tokenism and patriarchal patronage.
The speakers who responded to the report included: Diana Kh, a concerned activist from Manipur who spoke about what is happening to women from diverse communities in the context of an ongoing conflict and the Centre’s frightening indifference, Nasreen Mithai from the BMMA spoke about how the ruling party projected itself as the savior of Muslim women appropriating their efforts to bring about transformation from within even while it continued to target Muslim women and men; Vijayakumari a former ASHA worker spoke about the immense contribution of the “voluntary” health workers to rural health and especially during the COVID crisis who still continue to struggle for basic education and health for their own children K.S. Vimala from AIDWA, India who spoke about the history of women’s struggle for political empowerment and how they felt totally totally short changed by the Ruling party on the women’s reservation Bill that is problematic at so many different levels.
