Umran Malik, who wishes to touch 155 km/hr, fell short by little when he delivered the fastest ball of IPL 2022 – a 154 km/hr thunderbolt that was slammed into the fence by Chennai Super Kings opener Ruturaj Gaikwad. The Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer now has four of the five fastest deliveries of the season against his name. 

SRH skipper Kane Williamson won the toss and chose to field at the MCA Stadium, Pune. 

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Coming to bowl the 10th over in the first innings, Malik went full on the second ball. He pitched the 154 km/hr delivery. Gaikwad, who looked well set in the middle, slammed it straight down the ground for a boundary. The record for the fastest delivery in IPL 2022 was previously held by Kolkata Knight Riders speedster Lockie Ferguson, when he managed to touch 153.9 kmph, beating Malik’s 153.3 kmph by decimal points. 

Umran Malik has also bowled 153.1 and 152.9 kmph this season.

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The 22-year-old only earlier this week bagged his  maiden IPL five-for, when his side locked horns with the Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. His spell of 4-0-25-5 is the best of IPL 2022 so far. 

Hyderabad bowling coach, South Africa great Dale Steyn, had said that he has no douby the youngster will represent India soon. 

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“Umran will play international cricket, no doubt about that. He bowls at 150kmph consistently, and nobody else is doing that in the world right now, maybe Lockie Ferguson is the other guy who does it, but they are very different bowlers. But from an Indian point of view, he is the only guy that consistently bowls over 145-150kmph every single ball, so he will play for India. But how India manages him is completely up to them,” Steyn told Sportstar. 

Teams:

Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Robin Uthappa, Devon Conway, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w/c), Mitchell Santner, Dwaine Pretorius, Simarjeet Singh, Mukesh Choudhary, Maheesh Theekshana

Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson(c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran(w), Shashank Singh, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, T Natarajan