‘Despite working with Steyn for so long and learning under him, he’s doing the same mistakes’ – Virender Sehwag criticises Umran Malik for latter’s lacklustre outings in IPL 2023

Umran Malik and Sehwag: Twitter

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) ended their dismal run in the Indian Premier League 2023 following a defeat handed over to them by Mumbai Indians (MI) in match number 69. With nothing to play for in their last league match for SRH, fans were expecting the team to show some more intent.

After posting a decent score on the board of 200/5 in the first innings, the Aiden Markram-led side lacked penetration in its bowling resulting in MI chasing the target down in 18 overs with 8 wickets in hand.

After losing the toss SRH were asked to bat first. The Markram-led side brought Umran Malik back in the XI who wasn’t in form in the last seven matches that he had played in the season so far. Similar, was the case this time around as the speedster conceded 41 runs in the three overs that he bowled.

Speaking on his performance, the former India opener Virender Sehwag lashed out at Malik for his continuous variations in his line and length and also mentioned that with the likes of legendary Dale Steyn as the bowling coach, these mistakes should have been minimised until now.

“If it were a South African pacer, I could’ve understood that he wouldn’t want to bowl too full. But Umran Malik… the problem is that he keeps shuffling his length. He doesn’t have the experience yet. He might have worked a lot with Dale Steyn, but he hasn’t really got the idea of his length. Despite working with Steyn for so long and learning under him, he’s doing the same mistakes that he did last year,” Sehwag said to Cricbuzz

The former India batter also felt that SRH’s bowling was really out of sorts and also pointed out the fact that only taking wickets was the option for the 2016 champions to defend 200 against Mumbai in their last league fixture. But SRH bowlers failed miserably as they even failed to contain the runs.

The Jammu-born pacer had a disappointing IPL 2023 and finished with only five wickets to his name in the eight matches that he played.