Umran Malik the pace sensation from Jammu-Kashmir made a name for himself in the IPL 2022 season for Sunrisers Hyderabad earning him a national team call-up for the T20I series versus South Africa.
India head coach Rahul Dravid has been excited by the prospect of seeing tearaway quick Umran Malik in India’s practice sessions ahead of the first T20I against South Africa.
However, at the same time, Dravid hinted that it will be difficult for the Jammu pacer to get game time against the Proteas.
Malik, 22, bowls with sheer pace and consistently clocks speeds above 150kph and was used as a middle-overs enforcer by Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2022, picking 19 wickets in that phase, out of his haul of 22 wickets in the tournament.
Rahul Dravid has been keenly observing the pacer in the nets.
“It’s exciting. He certainly bowled quick and with pace. Another thing which has been interesting for me watching the IPL from the outside is the number of Indian bowlers bowling fast.”
“And obviously, being coach of all formats of the game, I would love to see that translated into the longer formats of the game. But it is brilliant in terms of watching Umran in the nets, you can see that he has got that pace,” said Dravid in the press conference.
Dravid is happy to have someone like Malik in the pool but not sure if the pacer will get some matches against a full-strength South Africa side.
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“Obviously, he (Malik) is learning. He is a young boy and he is getting better, and improving. The more he is able to play, the better he is going to get. From our, perspective, very happy to have someone like him in the mix. We have to see how much playing time we can give him, we need to be realistic, we have a large squad, it is not possible to give everyone playing XI time.”
Whether or not Umran features in the series or gets any amount of game time remains to be seen. But with consistent performances and the raw pace he has shown over the past few months it will be difficult to keep him out of the playing XI for long.
It is clear that the team management sees Umran as an asset and as such want him to ‘learn the ropes’ before being part of the Indian cricket for the long-term.