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Pace by itself can be a self-defeating arsenal. It gets people excited, it fills the stands, but unless directed well, it makes a bowler liable for bashing on both sides of the wicket. For players at the top level game have a quicker eye, a wider scoring range, they approach anything loose with a touch of brutality.
That is why, when Umran Malik’s name reverberated around for his sheer pace, there were bound to be cynics, concerned whether the unabashed right-arm seamer from the valleys of Jammu and Kashmir would have the tools required to back his alarming speed and hostility.
The game’s past and present are evident to multiple names hitting the 145 kph mark, or even the 150 clicks, but only a rare few have been able to do it consistently. Pace is physically demanding, it’s a phenomenon that can’t be taught, you either have it or you don’t. Multiple medium fast-bowlers have strived to add to their natural speeds, but only few have been able to stick with it without career-halting injuries. Think of Bhuvneshwar Kumar here and his returns and impact pre & post back injury in 2018.
It wasn’t a concern with Malik, though, he is born with speed and lots of it. As per ball by ball data, over 80% of his deliveries in the IPL have been above 140 kph. Only 2.8% of those, highlighted senior journalist Jarrod Kimber in an insightful vlog over his Youtube channel, have been slower than the 130 kph mark. That is a quick bowler, in every sense of the word.
Balls bowled above 140kph in IPL 2022
| Umran Malik | 127 |
| Lockie Ferguson | 96 |
| Dushmantha Chameera | 62 |
| Mohammed Siraj | 61 |
| Jasprit Bumrah | 60 |
| Mohammed Shami | 58 |
| Prasidh Krishna | 57 |
| Umesh Yadav | 41 |
| Alzarri Joseph | 40 |
| Kuldeep Sen | 38 |
| Tymal Mills | 30 |
| Khaleel Ahmed | 27 |
| Kagiso Rabada | 24 |
| Basil Thampi | 22 |
| Odean Smith | 20 |
| Pat Cummins | 18 |
With Malik, that speed comes from a strong shoulder and a super quick arm-flex at the point of releasing the ball. There is no waste of energy; his run-up is aligned straight to enable an unerring sync of the body and pace. The line, too, is generally outside off. Umran may give a right-hander the room to open his arms for a square drive, but he seldom offers them the flick through mid-wicket on the on-side.
Fellow Sunrisers Hyderabad quick Bhuvneshwar has been a flagbearer of extracting optimum speed out of one’s body by simply synergising the action correctly, with not an inch of his run-up wasted doing anything that doesn’t aim for the batter or the three sticks behind him. How Bhuvneshwar would wish he had a natural pace in excess of 140.
Or a Kamlesh Nagarkoti, whose thin-wired body couldn’t sustain the speed his mind was demanding out of it. Essentially, Malik doesn’t try to bowl 150 clicks. It comes out of him naturally, through those strong shoulders, a quick bowling arm and a perfect sync to his action, which is technically remarkable for someone whose professional career began 15 months back.
Umran made his senior J&K debut with a no-limelight-attached Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 game against Railways in January 2021. But the journey truly began a few years before that, when JKCA’s then team mentor Irfan Pathan combined with the team’s head coach Milap Mewada and senior video analyst Sheikh Suhail to earmark the raw quick as one of the players to be groomed.
J&K based cricket journalist Mohsin Kamal recalled a conversation he had with Suhail, who was so impressed by the pacer that he prophesied a successful IPL and India journey ahead for him. This week, Umran bagged his maiden five-fer in competitive cricket to give strength to Suhail’s words.
The pacer had bowled jaw-dropping pace before in IPL 2022, but in the game against Gujarat Titans, he married it with fine accuracy to return with figures of five for 25 off his four overs.
The 22-year-old went for 6.20 per over when the rest of the SRH attack conceded 174 runs off 16. The stand-out ball being a 152.8 clicks thunderbolt to hit the base of the stumps against a well-set Wriddhiman Saha.
After a slow start to the tournament – his economy rate being above nine in each of his first four games – which gave fuel to doubts over the hype he carries, Umran has been tremendous for SRH as a middle-overs enforcer. Relishing a phase of the innings that perhaps gives him the luxury to attack the batters without worrying about the runs he concedes, he has come up with his best, delivering spells of 4/28, 1/13, and now the potentially path-breaking 5/25 in his last three innings.
Umran Malik in IPL 2022
| Batting team | |
| Rajasthan Royals | 9.750 |
| Lucknow Super Giants | 13.000 |
| Chennai Super Kings | 9.667 |
| Gujarat Titans | 9.750 |
| Kolkata Knight Riders | 6.750 |
| Punjab Kings | 7.000 |
| Royal Challengers Bangalore | 3.250 |
| Gujarat Titans | 6.520 |
The less highlighted spell of one for 13 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore shows how unrelenting and consistent Umran can be on his day already. Such days don’t attract as much applause or excited hoo-haas from the commentary box, but they are more pertinent to the fast-bowler’s cause, for the frequency of such days would dictate whether he takes the next step in his journey or not: becoming a robust product.
It helps that SRH have arguably the greatest speedster of the modern era, Dale Steyn, in their support staff to spend two months with Malik. No one could better understand the journey of a brash, raw quick into a rounded, world-beating force than the man who embarked upon it.
Yet, Steyn’s grins from the dug-out after every wicket tell a story in themselves, for he recognises his job is a little easier than it would’ve been to shape a lesser bowler. By no means a finished product, but Umran is this good already. It shouldn’t take long for him to be great.
