What makes Umar Gul one of the best T20 bowlers?

Umar Gul, known as a death-overs specialist, has announced his retirement from all formats of cricket at the age of 36. After Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram’s farewell to international cricket in 2003, he was one of the main fast bowlers for Pakistan along with Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, who were often absent from playing eleven due to injuries or controversies.

As a right-arm fast-medium bowler, he had had a sound career in all-formats of cricket, however, his T20I career stands dominant among all three formats.

What makes Umar Gul one of the best T20I fast bowlers?

Economy Rate:

In T20 format, economy is one of the most important parameters to consider and Umar Gul had been extremely economical; he conceded runs with an economy rate of only 7.19 in his T20I career. Moreover, the special fact about Gul in terms of economy is that he mostly used to bowl death-overs in the T20 format.

In the death-overs, batsmen usually go after the bowler on every possible delivery, and Umar Gul was still able to keep the batters quiet due to his accurate yorkers. Additionally, during the T20 World Cup edition of 2009, Gul used to bowl his 4 overs spell in the final 8 overs of the opposition innings. Considering these facts, it is quite astonishing to see that Gul still ended up his career with such an economy rate.

Dismissal Types:

This is the most important parameter if one has to judge how good a bowler is. Among the 85 wickets he took in his 60 games, 49 percent of the batsmen dismissed were through Bowled and LBW, and 11 percent through ‘catch by the keeper’. This means that most of the wickets that Gul took were because of his exceptional bowling skills rather than errors or poor short selection by batsmen.

Exceptional performances and Achievements:

Umar Gul features as the top bowler in International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s All-Time T20I Rankings for the bowlers.

He was the leading wicket-taker in 2007 and 2009 T20 World Cup editions.

He was known as the best yorker bowling bowler in the T20 format.

Out of his 200.3 overs in T20Is, he bowled two maiden overs which is quite rare in this format.

Got two 5-wicket hauls & four 4-wicket hauls in his T20I career, which again is a remarkable achievement in the context of the T20 format.

Cricket is a batsman’s game especially if we talk about T20 and T10 formats and to be able to feature and maintain the topmost ranked bowler in ICC All-Time T20I Rankings for the bowlers is no minor feat by Umar Gul. His accurate death-bowling, economy, and the way he used to dismiss batsmen along with his stellar career bowling average of 16.97, makes him one of the best T20 blowers till now.

About the Author (Saad Qaisar): The author holds an Electrical Engineering degree from NUST, Pakistan and MS degree in Electronics and Radio Engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea. The author has played domestic cricket in South Korea and is a cricket fan by all means. Twitter: @AskSaadqaisar