GT vs SRH: The Idea Was To Bowl As Fast As I Can - Umran Malik

It rarely happens that a cricketer gets a player of the match award in a losing cause. But such was the performance from Umran Malik that there was no one even remotely close who deserved that award in the match between Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

There were a lot of great performances, Abhishek Sharma and Aiden Markram hit 50s for SRH, Wriddhiman Saha hit a blistering knock of 68 runs but it was Malik’s spell which was the talking point of the game as he took a five-wicket and literally single-handedly won the game for his side.

God Willing, I’ll Bowl 155kph One Day: Umran Malik

GT was chasing a massive score of 196 runs. They had gotten a great start. But when Umran Malik came into bowl it was just about him. He got rid of Shubman Gill with a sheering yorker, pretty similar to how he had dismissed Shreyas Iyer in an earlier game. Then he bounced out Hardik Pandya who was hit by a fast bouncer on the very first ball he faced from Malik.

Saha was taking the game away from SRH but Malik returned again and bowled a yorker at 153kph to get rid of Saha as well.

He again returned to bowl his last over of the game in the 16th over of the innings and he got two important wickets of David Miller and Abhishek Manohar both of them got clean bowled as Malik’s pace was too hot to handle.

Malika’s five-wicket haul had almost sealed the deal for SRH, their dugout also looked relaxed, Dale Steyn especially looked chuffed up by the performance of Malik but eventually, some brilliant late order hitting by Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan took the game away from SRH.

“The idea was just to bowl as fast as I can. The ground is slightly on the smaller side so the idea is to stay on the stumps, mix the pace and try to keep the ball within the stumps. [On targeting 155 kph] God willing if I have to bowl 155 kph, I will do it one day. But at the moment, all I want to do is bowl well”, Malik said after the game.

Malik’s five-wicket haul has taken him to the 2nd spot on the purple cap list.

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