Sunrisers Hyderabad have made their presence felt with two back-to-back wins in the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League. On Monday, they defeated one of the best teams in the league, the Gujarat Titans. That was a comfortable win for the team as they ticked all the boxes in both the bowling and batting departments. It all started after winning the toss. Kane Williamson opted to bowl first after having chased down the target in the previous match against CSK. The bowlers also made their call correct by bowling with good line and length and kept on taking wickets.
SRH restricted the dreadful batting line-up of Gujarat Titans to just 162 runs in their 20 overs. For SRH, Bhuvneshwar and Natarajan took two wickets each, and Jansen and young Umran Malik got one wicket each. But the real highlight of SRH bowling was once against the rear pace of a young Kashmir-born bowler, Umran Malik. He clicked the fastest bowl of the match at 153.4. But his contest with GT skipper Hardik Pandya in the 8th over was worth watching.
Umran has been bowling at an average speed of over 150 km/h. He started the 8th over with a short-ball that hit Hardik on his helmet at a speed of around 149 km/h. And that was too much pace to handle for the all-rounder. However, he hit two back-to-back fours after that, but the Kashmir-born pacer was looking too hot to handle. In the same over, Umran took the wicket of wicket-keeper batter Mathew Wade. However, he was unlucky that some boundaries went off the edge. But he ended the match with a figure of 1/39.
He has impressed many ex-cricketers with his consistent pace and many have asked the BCCI to work on him. Former England skipper Michael Vaughan also came up with a tweet last night after the match, praising the SRH pacer. Vaughan tweeted from his official Twitter handle and said that the BCCI should watch out for the pacer. He also suggested to send him to play some county cricket for some more improvement.
Umran is just 22 years old, and the IPL has given him the right platform to showcase his talent. He is an interesting prospect for the future of the Indian cricket team, which lacks a pacer with high speed. However, former South African pacer Dale Steyn is the bowling coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad and he has also lauded the pacer.