The 40th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 was played between Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Gujarat Titans (GT) and it brought enthralling action for fans if there was one player who stole the show completely, it was none other than the fiery pacer Umran Malik. Malik managed to grab the player of the match award despite his team losing the match is a testimony to the level of impact he created in the game. He bagged a fearsome 5-wicket haul as he clean bowled four batters.
In the same light, cricket experts Daniel Vettori and Chris Lynn shared their thought on the fearsome fast bowler. Lynn feels that Umran Malik will do wonders if he is fast-tracked to Team India and especially into the T20 WC squad, as the bouncy and pacy pitches in Australia will assist him. The bowler who marked his IPL debut last year is tearing apart batters with his searing pace.
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When asked if Malik is ready for an India call-up, during a chat on ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time Out, Chris Lynn said, “From the outside looking in, definitely. I will factor the wickets are bouncy here in Australia and you need I suppose that youth and just that guys haven’t played against it.”
He further added, “You keep going back to whom you drop because it is such a formidable [bowling] line-up but would love to see this guy in the World Cup. He’s going to take the world by storm if he does get a chance at the international level. It is lucky that I am not a selector for India.”
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It is known to all that Umran Malik bowls his 90% of the pace of 145 kph or more and he has even crossed the 150 kph mark on a plethora of occasions. Vettori feels that his raw pace adds an X factor to him and this certainly generates ‘anxiety’ among batters facing him. Due to SRH pacer’s classy show in the second half of IPL 2021, he was included as a net bowler in India’s T20 WC 2021 squad.
Explaining it further, Daniel Vettori said, “That pace generates anxiety among batters and not just tailenders, it’s all batters. We don’t often see bowlers get around the 153-154 mark. That’s exceptional pace, that’s a rarity that we haven’t seen I suppose consistently since the likes of [Brett] Lee, Shoaib Akhtar, or Shaun Tait. So, to see that is a huge part of the game now. You can see the excitement factor, brings a bit of X-factor.”
