Umran Malik had shown a lot of promise in the opening weeks of IPL 2022. On Sunday, he delivered in spectacular fashion with another devastating spell of pace bowling.
The Jammu and Kashmir quick has made Sunrisers Hyderabad's matches a must-watch just for the speeds he generated. Against Punjab Kings at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai, he was at his fiery best as he combined speed and accuracy to pick up 4-28 from his four overs.
Malik bowled a superb final over in Punjab's first innings, giving away no runs and picking up three wickets to wrap up the innings for 151. The young speedster thus became just the fourth bowler to deliver a maiden in the 20th over in the IPL. The final wicket was a run-out, making it a four-wicket maiden.
Punjab lost their last five wickets without the addition of a run, ruining the hard work of Liam Livingstone who threatened to cut loose during his innings of 60 off just 33 balls with five hits to the fence and four over it.
When Livingstone and Shahrukh Khan (26) were batting together, Punjab looked set for a good score on 132-4 with four overs to go.
However, the innings wear pear-shaped when the other in-form Hyderabad pacer - Bhuvneshwar Kumar - dismissed Khan with a short ball. In his next over, Kumar got Livingstone caught off a short and wide one to finish with 3-22 and open the floodgates.
The last over of the innings was given to Malik and Punjab's lower order had no chance. The 22-year-old first had Odean Smith caught and bowled off a shorty ball before rattling the stumps of the next two bowlers off successive deliveries. A run out off his last ball denied Malik a hat-trick but the job was done.
After proving expensive in the opening matches of the IPL, Malik seems to have found his radar. "I think I have got my line and length better over the last few days," he said, "The plan was to keep it full and straight, and in that channel just outside off," the pacer said.
His mentor and bowling coach in the Hyderabad team is South African pace great Dale Steyn. The former Protea quick had said he wants to guide Malik the way Allan Donald did to him when he first started his career.
"I had somebody like Alan Donald in the dressing room. I idolised Alan. When he congratulated me when I did something, that was fantastic. I kind of want to do the same thing for Umran," Steyn said.
"It's all him. I am going to just be there to put an arm around him when things are not going well and I am just going to be there to shake his hands when it goes really well."
Hyderabad then eased to a fourth straight IPL win after a fourth-wicket unbeaten stand of 75 between Aiden Markram (41) and Nicholas Pooran (35) took the team home with seven balls and seven wickets to spare.
"We were 30-40 runs short and lost too many early wickets which put us behind the game," said Punjab captain Shikhar Dhawan. "The early wickets meant we had to hold wickets and that's where we had to mould our game. There was a middle order recovery but the early wickets cost us.
"The discussion with the batting will be to save wickets till the 13th-14th over, the bowlers are doing well.
"We need to put up complete performances and hopefully a three to four game turnaround which can change a season will come in."
Hyderabad joined Royal Challengers Bangalore, Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans at the top of the table with eight points.
