Jasprit Bumrah of Mumbai Indians appeals unsuccessfully during match 5 of the Indian Premier League season 17 (IPL 2024) between Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians held at the Narendra Modi Stadium , Ahmedabad on the 24th March 2024. (Sportzpics)
Dale Steyn will not return as Sunrisers Hyderabad’s coaching role in this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL), but the South African former pacer will be keeping an eye on the pacers in this year’s edition of the T20 league. The former pacer, who took 97 wickets in 95 matched in his IPL career and 67 wickets in 47 T20Is apart from having a stellar ODI and Test career, believes that bowlers like Indian and Mumbai Indians pacer Jasprit Bumrah and KG Rabada are the ‘all-in-all package’ in T20 cricket.
“The game has changed a lot, honestly, with T20 cricket. And what I mean by that is the way batters approach the game these days. So when I’m looking for bowlers, especially in the (T20) leagues where I do a little bit of coaching, I’m looking for the guys that have got the ability to take wickets – massive wicket-taking mentality. You look at guys like Jasprit Bumrah, he’s probably the all-in-all package, him and KG Rabada. They’ve got the ability to come and bowl at any particular time in a game and take a wicket. Those guys are like gold. So if you can produce more bowlers like that, we’ll start to see our fast-bowling stock get so much better. It’s not just about bowling 155kph these days or having tens of different types of skills, it’s really about being able to break the game open when your captain needs it,” Steyn told The Cricket Monthly.
In his time, the South African was one of the quickest bowlers in international cricket constantly touching bowling speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour. Steyn had the opportunity to work with Indian pacer Umran Malik during his time with Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL. Malik, who also bowled in excess of 150 miles per hour early in his IPL career, had played only one match during last year’s IPL in contrast to eight and 14 matches in the previous two editions of the tournament. Steyn shared his views on what bowlers like Malik need to do to achieve consistency when asked about handling such a bowler with raw pace. “That’s a difficult thing. Sometimes you get thrown into the scene like the IPL. You come into the ground and there’s 60,000 people screaming and you feel like, oh, I have to run in and I have to bowl 160kph an hour, which is great, but if it goes against the game plan and it goes against the run of play, you are going to go for 60-70 (runs) and that’s not going to do your team any good. It’s not going to do you any good,” shared Steyn.
Malik too failed to impress in his third IPL season in 2023 where he only picked up five wickets in eight matches in comparison to his second IPl season, where he picked up 22 wickets in 14 matches. Last season, Malik only played one match in the IPL. “Come a couple games later you might find yourself out of the team, and a season later you might not even find yourself in any of the franchises. So you really have to harness that speed and make sure that you are using it well. Just like a Ferrari has six gears, you don’t have to use all six gears. The Ferrari still can operate in first, second, and third, and fast bowlers are much the same. They have got to be able to know when to use their gears. If they are just trying to go in sixth gear all the time, they are doing themselves in a little bit,” shared Steyn.
The South African also shared a funny incident about Malik during an IPL match. “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 (Muttiah Muralidaran, Sunrisers Hyderabad assistant coach), ‘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 recalled.
