Unrivalled experience and searing pace combined to deadly effect to derail the Punjab Kings innings
Nagraj Gollapudi17-Apr-20224:15
Sanjay Manjrekar: Umran Malik has been ‘allowed to blossom’ at SRH
Bhuvneshwar Kumar returned for his second spell with four overs remaining in the Punjab Kings innings. At 132 for 4 Punjab may have imagined they could get a minimum of 40-50 runs off the last 24 deliveries with the power-hitting muscle of Liam Livingstone and Shahrukh Khan well settled at the crease.Bhuvneshwar ran in and banged the first ball just short of a length, running his first two fingers down the side of the seam to deliver a slow cutter that Shahrukh failed to read. Perhaps over-eager in his effort to smack the ball over long-off, he ended up reaching for the ball and slicing it, and it ballooned to Kane Williamson at cover.Bhuvneshwar would give away only two runs in the rest of the over, leaving Livingstone and Odean Smith frustrated.Returning to deliver the penultimate over of Punjab’s innings, Bhuvneshwar suffered a rare moment of punishment against a pretty good ball, as Smith manufactured the room and power to flat-bat a cramping short ball back over the bowler’s head for six. But Bhuvneshwar wasn’t going to let that shot make him veer from his plan of bowling a hard length with variations of pace. The final ball was another short-of-a-length legcutter, and Livingstone, just like Shahrukh, got sucked into a mis-controlled shot while reaching for the ball, and Williamson pouched a lovely low catch, completing it with both hands while falling forward.Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up 3 for 22 in his four overs•BCCIAt the beginning of the 17th over, ESPNcricinfo’s forecaster projected that Punjab would reach a total of 172. By the start of the 20th, it had come down to 162. Eventually Punjab were bowled out for 151, which their stand-in captain Shikhar Dhawan would later say was easily 30-40 runs short of a defendable total.Dhawan had also fallen into Bhuvneshwar’s trap during his first spell with the new ball. Dhawan had shown an eagerness to charge out of his crease during Bhuvneshwar’s first over, even doing so immediately after being hit in the box. Seeing him step out again in his second over, Bhuvneshwar pulled his length back, and Dhawan went through with his shot without really being in the position for it and found the fielder at mid-on. After three overs, of which Bhuvneshwar had delivered two, Punjab were 13 or 1. It would play a part in Punjab making their second-lowest Powerplay score (48 for 2) this season.Speaking to after the win on Sunday, Bhuvneshwar said that he figured out as soon as he had bowled his first ball that there would be no swing on offer. So he shifted to bowling back of a length and trying to get whatever he could out of a pitch that gripped and also offered extra bounce.He went on to explain the thinking behind the Dhawan wicket. “I knew that generally that’s how he [Dhawan] approaches to [attack] me,” Bhuvneshwar said. “I knew that he was going to step out and look for the boundaries, but I just wanted to hit the hard lengths just to see if there could be any top edge. And luckily that happened.”I always try to bowl to the batsman’s weakness, or [it] depends on the ground’s dimensions, where I can look to tuck them up. It’s a basic and simple thing for me – go with the batsman’s weakness or my strength – and depending on the wicket as well; if I can bowl the slower [ball] or bouncer or yorker. These are the little things I look to do.”The Dhawan wicket made Bhuvneshwar the highest wicket-taker in the powerplay in IPL history, moving above Zaheer Khan.If Bhuvneshwar is the yin of this enviable Sunrisers fast-bowling attack, Umran Malik is the yang. Only Lockie Ferguson matches Malik in the IPL when it comes to hitting the 150kph mark consistently.Malik, a raw diamond from Jammu, was unearthed by Sunrisers in IPL 2021 and retained before the 2022 auction. He has dazzled in nearly every match and even left the great Dale Steyn, the fast-bowling coach at Sunrisers, gobsmacked after delivering a stunning 140kph yorker to rattle back the stumps of Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer.After that match, Sunrisers’ director of cricket Tom Moody said the franchise had given Malik the freedom to express himself, with the understanding that while his searing pace might occasionally leak runs – especially behind the wicket – it would always be a wicket-taking threat.It was always going to be a engrossing battle between Malik against Punjab, a team that has shown an uncompromising attitude of trying to attack every ball and every bowler no matter what the match situation may be.Umran Malik ended the Punjab Kings innings with a triple-wicket maiden•BCCIMalik came into the attack to bowl the second over after the powerplay. Jitesh Sharma utilised the pace and the width of the first ball to pick up a slashed four. Malik then went fuller for the next four balls, missed his length off one of them, and Jitesh flicked him for another four.Malik decided to change his plan for the next ball at the behest of his captain Kane Williamson. The first part of the plan was to change the field and have three fielders behind square on the off side. Fine leg was inside the circle. Malik steamed in to bang a 148 kph delivery short of a length. The ball kicked up quickly into Jitesh, who sent a hurried pull ballooning straight up, and Malik grabbed the catch in his follow-through.The blazing pace at which Malik bowls makes every ball a spectacle. When it fails, he can get carted for runs – today Livingstone uppercut and pulled him for sixes when his short ball ended up less than ideally directed. But when it works it can send the stumps flying, as Malik did twice against the Punjab lower order and tail, grabbing three wickets in the final over of the innings, which was also a maiden.Asked whether he found it helpful to have Malik bowl at the other end, Bhuvneshwar cracked an impromptu joke. “I don’t think it helps; I think somewhere batsmen think: ‘look, he [Bhuvneshwar] bowls slow. So go after him.’ But looking at him, it always gives you joy that somebody is scaring batsmen and getting wickets like that. It’s always a joy to watch him. Hopefully, I get wickets [if batters go after him instead].”Malik won the Player-of-the-Match award, but he was fourth on ESPNcricinfo’s list of Most Valuable Players (MVPs), which is calculated using the Smart Stats algorithm that works out each player’s impact. Bhuvneshwar was second behind Livingstone.In different ways Bhuvneshwar and Malik bossed Punjab, bowling intellect and ferocious pace combining in a most lethal manner.