NEWS
Follow UsSunrisers Hyderabad secured their third consecutive victory of the tournament, by getting the better of Kolkata Knight Riders in Pune. While Rahul Tripathi later stole the show with thunderous innings, the real sight of the night was Umran Malik, whose high pace left KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer high and dry. Not only did he execute the yorker to perfection, Malik also showed the potential a high pace bowler can hold in T20 cricket.
Head Coach Tom Moody is definitely elated by his performance and suggested that the entire dressing room’s reaction to that dismissal was one of collective happiness of seeing a youngster do well.
"There is a lot of planning that goes on with any sort of match-up against any opponent. I think the emotion that was shown in the dug-out was about the joy for a young fast bowler getting such an important wicket for us," Moody said.
"Umran has been embraced by the franchise. He has been embraced by the team. There is no question about that. Everyone enjoys his bowling. He bowled very well (Against KKR). He stuck to his plans and we were quite meticulous with our planning to help him understand his role."
Already the holder of the five fastest deliveries in the tournament so far, Umran has an average speed of 143 kph - a benchmark reserved for the special ones. Even Dale Steyn was so impressed by his speed that he called him an inspiration for him.
"At the end of the day, when you are bowling 150 kph an hour, you are likely to go for runs. He goes for a lot of runs behind the wicket. It's not like he is getting smashed down the ground or through the covers. So you got to accept that his style of bowling, there's going to be a higher economy to that. And his role is to run in and express himself and be himself. We try and build a field around that so that he can express his fast bowler.
"He is clearly still at the beginning of his journey. He is learning every single day and having the likes of Dale Steyn around him is a huge boost because he is learning so much on the go. We accept he is going to go for runs, what we want to see is the return in terms of wickets," Moody added.