‘Young guy runs in and goes hard’ – Kane Williamson praises Umran Malik for clocking decent speeds on IPL debut

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s skipper Kane Williamson lauded young fast bowler Umran Malik after the latter’s impressive IPL debut against the Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday, October 3 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Malik couldn’t pick up a wicket, but clocked in excess of 140 kmph on a consistent basis. In fact, the 21-year pacer from Jammu and Kashmir touched the 150 kmph mark once.

Malik didn’t give many runs away and finished with figures of 4-0-27-0 to go with 13 dot balls. Williamson said that the Sunrisers have faced the seamer in the nets after which they decided to give him a go in the playing eleven. Although he couldn’t make a breakthrough, he managed to catch Williamson’s attention.

“We’ve been facing Malik in the nets – he’s special, lots of pace. Young guy runs in and goes hard,” Williamson was quoted as saying after the match.

Malik hasn’t played a lot of cricket, having made his List A and T20 debut in 2021 itself. The speedster picked up a three-wicket haul in January against Railways during the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 trophy. In his only List A game that he played in the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Bengal, Malik went for 98 runs in 10 overs.

It was tough work bowling defending a low total, says Kane Williamson

As far as SRH are concerned, they lost to the Knight Riders by six wickets and kept languishing at the bottom of the points table. After electing to bat first, the Orange Army were restricted to a paltry 115. KKR were cautious to start with, but Shubman Gill’s 51-ball 57 took them over the line.

After the loss, the Tauranga-born Williamson talked about the importance of building partnerships to keep a check on the opposition.

“(On par score) Around 150. It was tough work bowling defending a low total. We’ve been working hard and it just hasn’t been paying off. When we got to the last 3-4 overs with the bat, we wanted to have a crack and get 150. Hindsight is beautiful, honestly, we wish we had some partnerships. That’s part and parcel of the game – trying to identify what a competitive total will be,” he added.