Srinagar 28 Apr: Young pace sensation Umran Malik says he would want to cross the 155kmph speed mark one day but his main focus remains on bowling at the right areas as he claimed his maiden five-wicket haul in the IPL.
The 22-year-old from Jammu took Sunrisers Hyderabad on the verge of a win with figures of 5/25 before Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan pulled off a heist for Gujarat Titans by hitting four sixes in the final over to win the match by five wickets.
Though his efforts went for a losing cause, Umran was rightly adjudged the player of the match for his fiery spell of fast bowling, one of the finest in IPL history.
“The idea was to bowl fast and maintain length and plan the wickets. Like I dismissed Hardik bhai with a bouncer and shuffled up (Wriddhiman) Saha and bowled him out with a yorker,” Malik said after the match on Wednesday night.
“I tried to mix my bowling, and target the wickets as it is a small ground. Otherwise our bowling has done well.”
Asked if he still fancies touching the 155kmph mark, he said: “I just want to bowl at the right areas and good wickets and if I have to bowl above 155mph, God willing, I will do one day.”
Malik has been clocking in excess of 150 kmph consistently throughout the season and has picked up 15 wickets in eight matches at 15.93 average.
Introduced into the attack as late as the eighth over, Malik bowled devastatingly quick deliveries to scythe through the Gujarat Titans top-order, becoming the first IPL bowler to pick up all the first five wickets of an innings.
He rattled Shubman Gill’s off stump for his first wicket, before removing Hardik Pandya with a combination of pace and bounce.
Next, he produced a perfect 153 kmph thunderbolt yorker to smash the wickets of Wriddhiman Saha, before cleaning up both David Miller and Abhinav Manohar to sign off with a five-for.
