Former Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Brian Lara came up with a warning for young speedster Umran Malik: learn and execute a greater array of skills to be more relevant at the international stage. The unabashed J&K speedster may have been fast tracked due to his speed and hostility, but Lara says that alone wouldn’t take him far.
Lara, who was Malik’s head coach during IPL 2023, where the youngster really struggled to hold his spot, feels there is scope for massive improvement and skill upliftment with the 23-year-old raw quick from the valleys.
The word from the batting maestro being vindicated through stats, Umran has continuously faltered in the IPL and for India in the limited-overs game. The skiddy pacer consistently clocks 145-150 kmph but also sprays the ball around on both sides of the wicket. He has an economy rate of 9.33 after 25 matches in IPL, 6.54 after 10 ODIs and 10.48 from eight T20I games in India colours.
No wonder the Indian team management have found it difficult to fit Umran into their plans and have followed SRH’s suit into dropping from the playing XI in both formats on the ongoing tour of the Caribbean.
“He will be a sensation, but very quickly he will have to learn that fast bowling really does not trouble the best players in the world,”
said Lara on YouTube channel ‘Wake Up with Sorabh’
“You have to have the ability to do something with the ball, be sensible, and maybe understand times when you have to trickle back or understand the times when you have to up the tempo. He is very young and has got a lot of years ahead of him.”
Lara said to be able to establish himself at the highest level against batters with greater, deeper range of strokeplay, Umran will have to avail a “lot more tricks” than just bank on his speeds to intimidate batters like he does domestically.
To state facts, however, Umran hasn’t even cut his teeth properly at the domestic level and has been fast tracked to India’s limited-overs set-up with just 7 first-class and 13 List A matches to firm up his basics.
