Bowling in the death is one of the most difficult tasks in cricket, especially in the shorter formats when batters are looking to go hell for leather. Death bowlers are entrusted with great responsibility by their teams, having to either ensure their total is defended or the opposition are curtailed to as low a total as possible to give the batters a chaseable target. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 match between Punjab Kings and SunRisers Hyderabad, pacer Umran Malik bowled one of the greatest final overs one can witness.
Watch: Umran Malik’s incredible 20th over in PBKS vs SRH IPL 2022 match
Please give him a blue jersey already. #UmranMalik pic.twitter.com/Yc5myHCvWx
— Syed (@aamirsspk) April 17, 2022
A marauding Liam Livingstone looked set to power PBKS to a strong finish, but in the 19th over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar stifled him and Odean Smith, giving away just nine runs and getting the big wicket of the English all-rounder.
But there was work still to be done in the last over of the innings, with PBKS at 151/6 at that stage, with Odean Smith and Kagiso Rabada – both very capable of clearing the boundary — still at the crease.
Umran Malik came pacing in, bowling a short one that cramped Smith for space. The West Indies all-rounder went for the pull shot, but was beaten for pace and hit on the stomach.
The SRH speedster followed it up with another short ball and this time, Smith top-edged his pull and gave Malik an easy return catch.
A dot ball to Rahul Chahar followed.
Then, he bowled full and fast and Chahar missed his heave and the ball crashed into the stumps.
Vaibhav Arora was the new man in, and he got a similar ball from Malik – just slightly shorter – and he too missed his shot as the ball hit the top of the stumps.
Arshdeep Singh could only push the ball to short cover for the final delivery, and as he and Rabada tried to sneak a single, SRH effected a run-out to bowl them out for 151.
Promoted
Umran Malik finished with four wickets to his name, having given away just 28 runs in his four overs.
He became just the fourth bowler after Irfan Pathan in 2008, Lasith Malinga in 2009 and Jaydev Unadkat in 2017 to bowl a maiden in the final over of an IPL innings.
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