During the toss ahead of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s clash against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Ian Bishop asked the SRH captain Aiden Markram about the pecking order of Umran Malik.
Umran Malik had a terrific IPL season in 2022, as he used to bowl fast and threaten the batters with it. While Umran used to bowl wayward at times, his sheer pace used to cover the faulty lines and lengths most of the time.
In IPL 2022, Umran Malik snared 22 wickets at an average of 20.18 and a strike rate of 13.40 while playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) with the ball. No other Indian pacer has had more wickets than Umran, which speaks about the quality of the bowler.
However, Umran Malik didn’t have a great start to the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), as he didn’t take too many wickets and conceded too many runs in most of the games. His pace was also not as fast as the last season, so the bad ones were going to the boundary more often this time around.
Consequently, Sunrisers Hyderabad dropped Umran Malik after giving him only seven games, in which the speedster could manage to pick up only 5 wickets. Ever since being left out last month, Umran hasn’t been seen for the Orange army.
During the toss ahead of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s clash against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Ian Bishop asked the SRH captain Aiden Markram about the pecking order of Umran Malik. Aiden looked uncomfortable with this question, and he gave a baffling reply to Bishop.
“Not too sure, to be honest. Certainly, he’s a player with the X factor and bowls at 150kph, but I don’t really what’s about behind the scenes, but he has a lot of X factor,” stated Markram at the toss.
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It is not the first time Aiden Markram has come up with an answer which has seemed shady. Following the loss against Gujarat Titans (GT), the Proteas batter came up with an “if we’re allowed to” comment, which raised several questions.
Aiden Markram on Umran Malik’s exclusion from SRH Playing XI:
“Not too sure, to be honest. Certainly, he’s a player with the X factor, bowls at 150kph, but I don’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes.”
This is shocking! Absolutely baffling!
Why does the captain have…
— Prasenjit Dey (@CricPrasen) May 18, 2023
Markram says he isn’t sure where Umran is in the pecking order!
Clearly shows someone else is managing all selections not him.
And Markrams body language also seemed shaky on the question.#SRHvRCB
— Fantasy Cricket Pro 🏏 (Viren Hemrajani) (@FantasycricPro) May 18, 2023
It is a bit worrisome when the captain says “I don’t know what is about behind the scenes……” I have been perplexed about Umran Malik not getting a game too.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) May 18, 2023
It has been a tough season for Sunrisers Hyderabad, who are languishing at the bottom of the points table with only four wins in 12 matches. However, SRH have two games remaining, which provides them with the chance to act as a party spoiler for Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians (MI).
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