Umran Malik, who took the IPL by storm with his sheer pace last year, endured a dismal IPL 2023 campaign for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
The tearaway fast bowler featured in eight games this season, claiming only five wickets at an economy rate of 10.85.
Malik was dropped midway in the tournament and his exclusion created quite a stir. Amid the uproar, Umran was picked in SRH’s playing XI for the last league match against Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday (May 21).
However, the right-arm quick failed to live up to the expectations, conceding 41 runs in his three overs without taking any wicket.
After the game, former India opener Virender Sehwag slammed Umran Malik for his listless performance, citing that the latter hasn't picked Dale Steyn's brain despite working with him for some time now.
“You can only win by dismissing those batters. (Markram had kept) Fine leg, square leg, and deep midwicket, and asked the bowler to bowl a back-of-the-length delivery. But the batters didn't make a mistake. SRH took the chance, but the batters smashed them all around the park,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
"The bowlers weren't pretty good. The captain could've asked them to keep one of long-on and long-off. The thing was, you failed to stop the flow of runs altogether.
“If it were a South African pacer, I could've understood that he wouldn't want to bowl too full. But Umran Malik... the problem is that he keeps shuffling his length. He doesn't have the experience yet. He might have worked a lot with Dale Steyn, but he hasn't really got the idea of his length. Despite working with Steyn for so long and learning under him, he's doing the same mistakes that he did last year,” Sehwag said.
Despite posting 200 on the board, Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered an eight-wicket thrashing at the hands of Mumbai Indians to bow out of IPL 2023. They finished the league stage at the bottom with 4 wins from 14 games.
Chasing 201 to win, MI rode on Cameron Green’s whirlwind 100* off 47 balls and Rohit Sharma’s 37-ball 56 to get over the line with two overs to spare.
