The beauty about sport is that is transcends boundaries of all kinds, sometimes it can unite sports of various kinds too. On Friday (July 11) at Lord's, Mohammed Siraj came out with a heart-warming gesture after picking up the wicket of Jamie Smith in the post-lunch session on Day 2.
ALSO READ
- Captain in 2006 U19 World Cup and 2017 Champions Trophy, Head Coach in 2025 U19 Asia Cup: Sarfaraz Ahmed repeats his magic in another India-Pakistan final
- Failures at junior level, successes at senior level: The curious case of CSK's Ayush Mhatre after flop show for India in U19 Asia Cup
- U19 Asia Cup final: India vs Pakistan - War of words as Ali Raza gives fiery send-off to Ayush Mhatre and Vaibhav Suryavanshi
The English wicket-keeper had got off to yet another fluent start in the series and when he got past fifty, signs were ominous for the visitors. However, Siraj got a delivery to just shape away a fraction, which caused Smith's attempted back foot punch to get an outside edge. Substitute keeper Dhruv Jurel reacted sharply with a diving catch to his right to end Smith's enterprising stay at the crease.
As soon as the catch was taken, Siraj was seen gesturing to the skies and showed the numbers 'two' and 'zero' with his hands, symbolising '20', which was late Portugese footballer Diogo Jota's jersey number during his playing days. It was Siraj's first wicket of the game and he finished the innings with one more wicket, that of Brydon Carse as England ended their innings at 387 all out.
Many sports personalities, mostly footballers, have paid tribute to Jota in their own ways in recent times. The patterns of the tributes came with the players doing Jota's trademark 'gamer' goal celebration by sitting near the corner flag and mocking playing a video game. The most notable of the celebrations came from France's Ousmane Dembele who while playing for his club PSG dished out the tribute in the late minutes of his side's quarterfinal clash against Bayern Munich earlier this week. Kylian Mbappe had also done a similar celebration previously for Real Madrid in the same tournament.
Jota along with his brother Andre Silva passed away on July 3 in a car crash in Spain.
