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South Africa's legendary Dale Steyn had a stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) where he groomed pace sensation Umran Malik. The Jammu & Kashmir pacer made headlines with his raw pace troubling batters. But Steyn recalled telling Malik after talking to the statistician that he should bowl more slower balls to add variation to his bowling. But, Malik went against the plan and bowled a 155 kmph pacer to rattle the stumps which left him and Muttiah Muralitharan amused in the dugout.
"I'd go to our stats guy, Gaurav, and ask him something as simple as: How many slower balls do people bowl? What's the average? I'll use a small example. [During the IPL] He came to me and said Umran Malik was bowling on average one slower ball every 24 balls that he bowled, whereas Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar] was bowling 12 slower balls every 24 balls that he bowled. And then you look at the one slower ball that Umran Malik bowled and the strike rate for that was like 30 or whatever it was. And then it was just about going and suggesting to him [Umran], "Listen, this is what you are bowling. You are only bowling one slower ball and all the other ones are going for runs. Can you try and just add one more in and let's see if that makes a difference?," Steyn revealed in a conversation with ESPNCricinfo's The Cricket Monthly.
"And this is quite a funny story because I went and I said that to him and he said, "Oh, that's a great point. Thank you very much. If Bhuvi is doing it, I'll try it." And we were sitting in a game in Mumbai and it was the perfect time for him [Umran] to bowl a slow ball. And he ran in, and I turned around and I said to Murali, "I think he's going to bowl a slower ball." And he ran in and he bowled a yorker and he knocked the stumps out all over the place."
Steyn also recalled the camera panning towards him as they reacted to Malik's wicket. He also believes that statistics are useful but don't always matter.
"And the camera turned and it pointed towards me and Murali as if the coaches had come up with this amazing thing. And I was like, you know what, sometimes the master is the guy that's actually on the field. I'm telling him to bowl a slower ball. And he ran and bowled a gas 155kph yorker and knocked the stumps out of the ground. So sometimes the stats don't really matter. But there's definitely a place for it in helping players know what other players are also doing that helps them get better. And in that case, it's something that Umran Malik can certainly work on, but he proved me wrong that day. He just said, this is my skill. I'm going to do this," he added.
Malik's replacement in KKR announced
Meanwhile, Malik has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 due to an injury. He was roped in for his base price of Rs 75 lakh by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The defending champions have named left-arm pacer Chetan Sakariya as his replacement.
