Former West Indies batter Brian Lara came up with some useful suggestions for the young speedster, Umran Malik. After a brilliant performance in the IPL 2022, he shocked the entire cricketing fraternity with his lethal pace and as a result, his career graph went high. After seeing his outstanding run, cricketer turned commentator Sunil Gavaskar rated him as the most promising prospect after the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. But then Malik’s journey after wearing the Indian jersey has been a bit shaky and his last year’s IPL performance was below average.
Brian Lara who was the former head coach of SunRisers Hyderabad gave advice to the young pacer. “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. You have to have the ability to do something with the ball,” Lara stated during a session on the YouTube channel 'Wake Up With Sorabh.'
"We have had so many different examples. Wasim Akram was raw pace, Malcolm Marshall had destructive pace, and Michael Holding did. But they all know that at some point in time, they have had to come up with a lot more tricks than just being able to bowl fast. If he (Umran Malik) works with Dale Steyn, he could definitely be one of the best India could produce," Lara said.
Earlier, during the 2022 edition of IPL, playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Umran scalped 22 wickets in 14 games. As a result, he received an India call in both the white ball formats. Umran has played a total of 16 games for India where he picked up 24 wickets. Talking about the last year’s IPL, the Jammu and Kashmir-based speedster failed to make an impact as he only played seven of their 13 games for SRH.
Umran spoke about his recent form and told Star Sports, “Last year, I played all games and bowled all overs. This time, I bowled less overs and took 5 wickets only. When I wasn’t playing, I was putting on the hard work. I hope to perform better today (against MI).”