What Happened to Umran Malik? He has been out of Team India for a long time, finds himself out of the Ranji Team as well
Indian Seamer Umran Malik has been away from Indian Cricket since a really long time and this is the same Umran Malik who was the centre of attention in the 2022 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). In that season, he bowled a 157 kmph delivery to Rovman Powell and that delivery is the fastest ever bowled by an Indian in the cash rich T20 league till date and the J&K speedster still holds that record.
Umran's career is currently out of track
Following his sensational performance with the ball in the IPL, the 25-year-old got a chanceto play for the Indian National Cricket Team, but as time has passed, he has lost his shine. Forget about Team India, the young speedster is not even able to feature in Domestic Cricket right now.
Umran played an IPL match versus the Mumbai Indians (MI) on 27th of March, 2024 for the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), but since featuring in that encounter, he hasn't gotten the opportunity to play in any other game.
He has been struggling with injury issues in recent times, which has impacted his Cricket career a lot. First he got dengue, after that he suffered a toe injury, as well as a hamstring injury, due to which he was forced to miss the entire Duleep Trophy 2024.
A few days after recovering from these above mentioned injuries, he suffered yet another setback as he suffered a stress fracture in the left portion of his hip while bowling. As a result, he was forced to miss some matches of Ranji Trophy and due to his injury issues, his road to return to International Cricket has become very difficult and long.
The young seamer from Jammu & Kashmir came into the limelight for the first time in IPL 2021, where he got a chance to feature in three matches for the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Then, in the following season, he took part in his first full season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as he featured in all 14 contests, managing to dismiss 22 batters as well.
During that season, his best figures with the ball were 5-25 which helped him enter the Indian Cricket Team set up. However, he lost all of his rhythm in the next two seasons of the cash-rich T20 league. In IPL 2023, he dismissed just five batters in eight matches while in the previous season of the tournament, he got the chance to play in just a single game and he went wicketless in that match.
The Jammu & Kashmir seamer became famous because of his ability to bowl at speeds of 150+ but in the last two IPL seasons, his speed wasn't discussed much. He knows how to bowl fast, but he lacks the ability to swing the ball.
In such a situation, he had to bowl mostly in the overs after the end of the Powerplay, where he was thrashed a lot by the opposition batters. His line & length were also not correct and the batters were able to go after him easily. In IPL 2023, the 25-year-old conceded runs at an economy rate of 10.85 and those numbers became even more worse in the following season, as he had an economy rate of 15 to his name.
Umran's International Career has been like this
The 25-year-old Umran Malik, who hails from Gujjar Nagar in Jammu, has participated in 10 One-Day International matches and eight T20 International games for Team India. He has dismissed 13 players in ODIs and 11 batters in T20 Internationals.
He played his last match for the Men in Blue versus the West Indies in July of 2023. Talking about his IPL career, he has 29 scalps to his name in 26 matches. The 25-year-old is likely to be fit for the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), where he will be playing for defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The Kolkata based team secured his services in the Mega-Auction for a price tag of 75 lakh Indian Rupees.
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