Dale Steyn Made A Big Statement On Umran Malik’s Future With Team India: It is a rarity in cricket that a player gets rewarded with the Player of the Match award despite his team having lost the match. For that, the cricketer has to put an outstanding performance.
On Wednesday night, at the scenic Wankhede, Umran Malik, the 22-year-old speedster from Jammu&Kashmir, put on a performance that will be remembered for a long time. The Sunrisers Hyderabad speed sensation registered his maiden five-wicket haul in the IPL by taking all the five Gujarat Titans wickets to fall in their run-chase. Although Titans won a last-ball thriller, it was Umran Malik who grabbed the limelight.
With each of his wickets, the camera was quick to pan to SRH bowling coach Dale Steyn, who has been mentoring Umran and managing the youngster’s progress.
The rise and rise of Umran Malik is the story of this IPL. So far he’s been coming to bowl with opposition under pressure but this time came when GT were wicketless and took down the top 3
#SRHvGT #IPL2022 pic.twitter.com/XCfS59VlIK
— Wasim Jaffer (@WasimJaffer14) April 27, 2022
Speaking after the game, in a video uploaded by SRH, Dale Steyn heaped rich praises for Umran, who registered figures of 5/25 and now is the joint second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament with 15 scalps to his name.
“Umran was fantastic. I think he is semi-cemented his spot in that Indian team in the future. I may come to eat my words. He was wonderful today,” Steyn said.
Four of Umran’s five wickets were bowled: as Shubman Gill and Wriddhiman Saha made room to access the offside, the pacer stuck to his line of the stumps, while he ran through the drives of Miller and Abhinav Manohar. He bounced out Titans skipper Hardik Pandya.
Steyn observed that the conditions at the Wankhede assisted Umran as it had done to Mohammed Shami during SRH’s innings.
“The pitch conditions suited him perfectly as it did for somebody like (Mohammed) Shami and ran in and hit the deck really hard. Bowled straight lines really quickly and disturbed the timber quite often. He was absolutely marvellous,” he added.
You can watch the video of Dale Steyn marveling over Umran Malik here:
The master is confident. The student is hopeful. Umran Malik is blazing his way in Orange, in his quest to don Blue.
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) April 28, 2022
Umran Malik elaborated his plan – which was basically to bowl fast while also showcasing his improved control over his lines and lengths.
“I always bowl fast but I’ve been trying to bowl better lines and lengths. Plan was to rotate between between my plans. Idea was to attack the stumps and it’s worked well for me,” Malik said at the post-match presentation.
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