Aakash Chopra highlights Umran Malik’s exclusion from India’s squads for the tour of West Indies

Young Indian speedster wowed all with his bowling in the recently concluded Indian T20 League. With a maximum speed of 157 kmph, he troubled all batters in the Indian T20 League this year. He also took 22 wickets, on the back of which, he was later included in the Indian T20 squad.

His debt however has not gone exactly as he hoped for. In the three T20I matches Malik has played so far, the Jammu born took two wickets at a poor economy rate of 12.44. Former India batter, Aakash Chopra, however, thinks that the bowler must not feel disheartened and believe in the process.

Chopra thinks that the team management must have spoken to the young pacer as it is “all about nurturing his talent.” Taking to Twitter the cricket commentator wrote, “Umran Malik isn’t there in any of the two squads. ODI and T20i. I’m pretty sure that he’s been spoken to already…because it’ll be all about nurturing his talent going forward.”

Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel and Arshdeep Singh are the pacers who are going to the T20I tour against West Indies, whereas Umran Malik has been dropped from the squad. The series that starts on 22nd July with an ODI would play out the first T20I match on 29th July.

Aakash Chopra has earlier come out in massive praise of the young speedster on his official YouTube channel. He said, “Umran Malik has something that others don’t have – extreme pace. You can’t teach that to anyone. You can teach everything else – line and length, yorker, bouncer, slower ones, knuckleball etc. But you can’t teach someone how to bowl with speed. You are either born a pacer or you are born a medium-pacer.”

“No doubt, he has the pace. But what I feel is that Umran Malik is not ready for international cricket as of now. It is very simple, he needs time. He hasn’t played a lot of cricket and so he is still raw,” added the commentator.