Playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), Umran Malik has caught everyone’s attention with his pace and bounce. He has consistently bowled over the 150 kmph mark in the cash-rich league.
The 22-year-old, who has claimed 15 wickets so far, has hurled the fastest delivery – 157 kmph – in the IPL 2022 season as well.
However, the young speedster has been quite expensive with the ball, conceding 364 runs from 11 matches at an economy rate of 9.10. In particular, Malik has struggled in the last three matches, failing to claim a wicket with the batters opting for a counter-attacking approach against him.
On Sunday (May 8), Umran Malik bowled only two overs against RCB and leaked 25 runs in it. Amid his struggles, SRH head coach Tom Moody has said that it’s a learning experience for the pace sensation and the team management fully supports him in this lean patch.
"It's a real learning experience for him. Looking at the volume of cricket that he has had is very, very minimal really," Moody said after SRH’s 67-run loss to RCB.
"So this run of games in a row for him is something that he's not used to. He's not used to playing this regular cricket, the high intensity of the cricket that IPL brings.
"He's on a very steep learning curve. Over the last couple of outings, there's no question that he has not got it right. We are doing our best to support and guide him to learn from these experiences," he added.
Faf du Plessis (73* off 50 balls) and Rajat Patidar (48 off 38 balls) led the foundation for RCB’s huge total with a 105-run stand after they lost Virat Kohli on the very first delivery of the match. Later, Dinesh Karthik made full use of his dropped catch and produced a stunning cameo of 8-ball 30* to pile up 192/3 on the board.
"It's the small margins that we didn't capitalise on. We should not have been chasing the total that we ended up chasing.
"We dropped two key catches, which cost us. When you miss those small margins, it does make it very difficult for your batting group to go out there and chase a total which is 20-25 runs more than it should have been.
"Then we had a run-out in the very first over and it put us on the backfoot. it did make that run chase even more daunting," Moody said.
The SRH coach hoped that pace spearhead T Natarajan and spin all-rounder Washington Sundar will regain their fitness and be available for selection in their next match against KKR on May 14.
"Washy, we are hoping, should be available for selection come our next game. Nattu, we are also hoping that he'll be available for that match as well.
"We have a few days in between and both of them will be engaged in training. Hopefully they will feel confident and we'll feel confident to select them," Moody concluded.
(With PTI inputs)
