Umran Malik is racking up some serious reputation on the back of his pace bowling and while it is now a given fact that he will all likelihood walk away with the fastest delivery of the night prize in every match he plays, even when a certain Lockie Ferguson is in the fray, as was the case on Wednesday when Sunrisers Hyderabad took on Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium. While Ferguson went for 52 runs in his four overs, including a massive 25-run final over in which Shashank Singh hit the Kiwi pacer for three sixes, Malik had a day to remember claiming his first-ever IPL five-for – the first in IPL 2022 – returning 5/25.
However, his team ended up on the losing side by five wickets, but Malik walked away with the Player of the Match award for his superlative effort.
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Speaking after receiving his award, Malik said his main focus is to bowl fast as he can and mix it with here and there to keep the batters guessing. “The idea was just to bowl as fast as I can. The ground is slightly on the smaller side so the idea is to stay on the stumps, mix the pace and try to keep the ball within the stumps.”
Malik has been on many occasions breached the 150 kmph barrier and on Wednesday night his express pace had Hardik Pandya in trouble and at 153 kmph, the well-set Wriddhiman Saha could do little against the yorker that came his way. But Malik believes he can crank up his pace and on being asked if he is intending to touch 155 kmph, he said, “God willing if I have to bowl 155 kph, I will do it one day. But at the moment, all I want to do is bowl well.”
Malik, who has been impressive throughout the season with his pace, has been on the radar of many cricket analysts who have been saving good things about the 22-year-old. In 8 matches Malik now has 15 wickets at 15.93 and more importantly, he is clocking 145 kmph on a consistent basis and the economy has also come down from over 10 at the start of the tournament to 7.97.
He had earlier beaten Shubman Gill for pace and then had David Miller and Abhinav Manohar bowled as well. He took the wicket of Pandya as well with a short delivery, but his superlative effort was trumped by Rashid Khan and Rahul Tewatia’s lower-order hitting.
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