By Karan Agrawal 
India’s young fast bowling sensation Umran Malik has fallen off the radar of the Indian selectors in the last couple of years following his battle with multiple injuries having busted onto the scene with his fiery spells in IPL 2022 which helped him earn his maiden India call-up. The fast bowler who was once considered as the next big thing in Indian cricket has seen his career go downhill since IPL 2023 where he picked up just five wickets and went wicketless last season. Umran would have hoped for redemption in the upcoming IPL season where he was picked by Kolkata Knight Riders for INR 75 Lakh but as has been the case with Umran Malik throughout his career the fast bowler suffered another injury setback just before the start of the season and has been ruled out for the entirety of this year’s tournament.
The Plan
Umran had a breakthrough IPL season in 2022 as the fast bowler picked up 22 wickets for SRH and wreaked havoc with his pace. Former South African fast bowler Dale Steyn who was a part of the coaching setup of SRH revealed how he noticed that Umran was bowling only one slower ball in his spell of 4 overs as compared to Bhuvneshwar Kumar who bowled 12 slower balls and advised him to develop that particular delivery and start by bowling at least two slower balls. Steyn recalled how in a match in Mumbai he thought that Umran would try the slower ball as it was a perfect setting for him to practice the delivery instead he bowled a 155 kph yorker which rattled the stumps. In the words of Steyn “This is quite a funny story because I went and I said that to him and he said, ‘Oh, that’s a great point. Thank you very much. If Bhuvi is doing it, I’ll try it.’ And we were sitting in a game in Mumbai and it was the perfect time for him [Umran] to bowl a slow ball. And he ran in, and I turned around and I said to Murali [Muthiah Muralidaran, Sunrisers Hyderabad assistant coach], ‘I think he’s going to bowl a slower ball.’ And he ran in and he bowled a yorker and he knocked the stumps out all over the place,” Steyn said on ESPNCricinfo’s Cricket Monthly.
The Reaction
“The camera turned and it pointed towards me and Murali as if the coaches had come up with this amazing thing. And I was like, you know what, sometimes the master is the guy that’s actually on the field. I’m telling him to bowl a slower ball. And he ran and bowled a gas 155kph yorker and knocked the stumps out of the ground. Sometimes the stats don’t really matter. But there’s definitely a place for it in helping players know what other players are also doing that helps them get better. And in that case, it’s something that Umran Malik can certainly work on, but he proved me wrong that day. He just said this is my skill. I’m going to do this,” Steyn added.
The Reason
Talking about the slump in Umran’s form post the 2022 IPL season Steyn said “Sometimes you get thrown into the scene like the IPL. You come into the ground and there’s 60,000 people screaming and you feel like, oh, I have to run in and I have to bowl 160 kph an hour, which is great, but if it goes against the game plan and it goes against the run of play, you are going to go for 60-70 [runs] and that’s not going to do your team any good. It’s not going to do you any good.”