"He’s doing the same mistakes that he did last year"- Virender Sehwag on Umran Malik's struggles in IPL 2023

Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag was disappointed with the way speedster Umran Malik performed for the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the IPL 2023 season. Umran was dropped from the team as he picked up just five wickets from seven games at an economy rate of 10.35.

He did get an opportunity against the Mumbai Indians (MI) on Sunday to finish the season on a high but wasn't able to do so. In three overs, he was smashed for 41 runs and failed to make any impact on the game.

Speaking to Cricbuzz after the game, Virender Sehwag questioned the work that Umran Malik was putting in behind the scenes with South African legend and SRH bowling coach Dale Steyn. He said:

"Umran Malik’s problem is that he keeps shuffling his length. He doesn’t have the experience yet. He might have worked a lot with Dale Steyn, but he hasn’t really got the idea of his length. Despite working with Steyn for so long and learning under him, he’s doing the same mistakes that he did last year."

Veteran Bengal cricketer Manoj Tiwary was also present in the discussion and he shed light on SRH captain Aiden Markram's comments on Umran Malik's absence in the previous game. He added:

"Umran didn't play enough games too so it's difficult to say if he was rusty. But when your captain says at the toss that even he doesn't have an idea of what's going on with your selection, it is bound to hurt your self-confidence. He needs to keep a simple field and bowl back of a length. That's nowhere to be seen."

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Virender Sehwag on SRH's captaincy options

Virender Sehwag also opined that it is not necessary that only an experienced Indian player can be a captaincy option for SRH. He gave an example of Grame Smith, who captained South Africa at the age of just 23, and also spoke about how Kolkata Knight Riders backed Nitish Rana with the captaincy in absence of Shreyas Iyer.

On this, Virender Sehwag stated:

"Graeme Smith captained South Africa at the age of 23 and continued till he retired. Nitish Rana also didn't have much captaincy experience before. So you can always try players like Rahul Tripathi, Mayank Agarwal, etc. Even Bhuvneshwar Kumar could be the captain as he is very polite and could have that clarity in communication with foreign players and Indians."

Aiden Markram's captaincy has certainly come under the scanner and it will be interesting to see whether the Sunrisers name a new captain next season.