Indian pacer Umran Malik has revealed that he never followed Waqar Younis, and he instead picked three Indian pacers as his idols.
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The last few months have been great for pacer Umran Malik. After an incredible IPL 2022, the pacer from Jammu also got his place in the Indian team for the South Africa series.
Umran Malik won the emerging player of the year award of the IPL 2022 for his consistent performances. Malik finished the IPL 2022 with 22 wickets in 14 games at an average of 20.18, and he finished as the 4th highest run-scorer of the tournament.
Umran recorded the 2nd highest speed of IPL 2022 (157 Km/h), which is the 3rd fastest ball in the history of the Indian Premier League.
Umran Malik picks his bowling idols
Umran Malik has been getting praises from all around the world and recently, Brett Lee said that the action of Umran Malik reminds him of Waqar Younis. A few other former players have also compared Umran Malik to the Pakistan legend, but Malik said that he never followed Waqar Younis.
Malik picked the Indian trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar as his bowling idols. He said that he followed all of them when he was coming through the ranks.
“I have not followed Waqar Younis. I have a natural action. My idols include (Jasprit) Bumrah, (Mohammed) Shami and Bhuvneshwar (Kumar) Bhai. I used to follow them when I was playing while coming through the ranks,” Malik said at the Indian Express Idea exchange.
Malik also insists that he is trying to keep his calm on his selection to the national side. He said that he does not want to carry away and want to win all five games of the series.
“There’s no point getting carried away. If it is destined to happen, it will Inshallah. I want to do my best for my country,” Malik added.
“I have got an opportunity in these five matches. My goal will be that we win all five matches, I perform well and single-handedly win those games for India,” said Malik.
