IPL 2019: With 154 wickets, Lasith Malinga is most successful seamer in the league history

Lasith Mallinga is widely hailed as the greatest match winner with the ball for three time IPL champs Mumbai Indians, a feat he would  savour for the rest of his life

In common cricketing parlance, T20 is considered to be a batsman’s paradise where the belligerent stroke makers make merry flaying bowling attacks with utter disdain exhibiting their full arsenal of stroke play, hitting some lusty boundaries on belter of tracks much to the audiences delight. However, it has not been all hunky dory for batsmen in the shortest format as there have been world-class bowlers across the T20 leagues who have knocked of quite a few stumps to make the contest on the 22-yards a level playing field. One such exponent with the red cherry is Lasith Malinga who has proved his pedigree as arguably the greatest seamer in the Indian Premier League. Lasith Malinga is widely hailed as the greatest match winner with the ball for three-time IPL champs Mumbai Indians, a feat he would savour for the rest of his life. The tearaway Lankan speedster has produced some match-winning spells with the ball with superlative consistency for the Mumbai Indians and played a significant role in the IPL heavyweight winning a hat trick of league titles. Malinga has undoubtedly been the spearhead of the Mumbai Indians pace attack for over a decade. He has been the go-to man for Rohit Sharma to get those crucial breakthroughs early in the innings and more often than not has put the opposition on the back foot. Malinga has been like a mentor to the MI seam bowlers who all learnt a thing or two about how to fine tune the art of pace bowling. While Mumbai Indians have been fortunate to be served by a galaxy of seamers in Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell McClenaghan, Munaf Patel, Dhawal Kulkarni, RP Singh and Jasprit Bumrah; Malinga remains the grand old veteran of Mumbai’s pace attack. The Sri Lankan seamer who bowls with a rather deceptive slinging action is known to set up his dismissals with a bagful of tricks. Malinga is widely considered as the best exponent of the yorker in the T20 format. He has the ability to bowl those lethal toe-crushing yorker at will both with the new ball at the start of the innings and towards the death overs. He bowls at a fairly brisk pace and has the ability to swing the ball both ways. MALINGA WON THE PURPLE CAP IN 2011 SEASON SCALPING 28 WICKETS Malinga was at his devastating best in the 2011 IPL season picking up 28 wickets in sixteen matches and much deservingly winning the purple cap for the season. The icing on the cake for him in the season was picking up a five-wicket haul against Delhi Daredevils. He has been a consistent wicket-taker for Mumbai Indians ever since donning the jersey for the Blues. MALINGA IS THE HIGHEST WICKET TAKER IN THE INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE It comes as no surprise that Malinga is the highest wicket-taker in the history of the Indian Premier League. The Sri Lankan speedster has picked up a whopping 154 IPL wickets so far in just 110 matches. What makes Malinga's credentials even stronger is the fact that he can choke the opposition for runs apart from being an outright strike weapon. All through his glittering IPL career, the right arm seamer has picked up a bag full of wickets at a miserly economy rate of just 6.86. Among many of his claims to fame, Malinga also holds the record for the most 4-wicket hauls by a seamer in the IPL and has bagged a fifer too. Malinga who served as the bowling mentor for Mumbai Indians after not being picked up by the franchise in the 2018 season is very much back in the Mumbai Indians squad for one last time as he once again got snapped up by his trusted club in the Dec'18 auction for the 2019 season. In the sporting world, it is commonly said that champions of their sport always bid adieu from the game at their very peak. After serving Mumbai Indians with distinction for more than a decade, Lasith Malinga will look to finish his stellar IPL career with a flurry as 2019 could be his swansong from the league in which he already is a living legend.