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Fast bowler Umran Malik got replaced with left-arm seamer Chetan Sakariya because of an injury by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season 2025. 25 years old Malik, after recovering from dengue fever, sustained a hip fracture earlier in the domestic season, which got him ruled out of the tournament.
Sakariya joined KKR for ₹75 lakhs, he played for Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals in previous seasons. He is 27 years old and during his career he has represented India in one ODI and two T20 Internationals and has 20 wickets in 19 IPL matches. Malik was last seen in action in IPL 2024 while Sakariya's most recent match was in Ranji Trophy 2024, both players are returning from injury layoffs.
Umran Malik's Importance is based on three important key points:
Threat to Opposition as a Pacer: As a "tear away pacer" who was capable of hitting more than 150 kph, Malik was an infrequent high-velocity bowling talent, crucial to disrupting batters in death overs also in power plays.
Backup Role: For injury troubled overseas pacer Anrich Nortje, he was appointed as the primary Indian cover, adding depth in KKR's pace arsenal.
Wicket-Taking Ability: Despite fitness problems in recent times, his IPL record (18 wickets in 2022) and pugnacious pace made him a tactical asset for partnership disruption.
If other bowlers of KKR did their job well and Sakariya tried to fit-in well, then the change may not hurt them much, it all depends on how well KKR adapts. But if they are unable to find another individual who can terrify batters with raw pace like Umran, it can weaken their bowling attack.
His absence will bring pace deficiency to team as it deprives KKR's Indian pace option to Nortje and is left with no choice but to turn towards inexperienced players like Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Arora which also reduces the squad depth. The substitute Chetan Sakariya will be adding left-arm variety but the team will lack Malik's raw speed and direct comparison of role.
Chetan Sakariya is a left-arm, practitioner of swinging the new ball and providing economical spells, he has other special skills of slowing the ball and adding cutters to his way of accurate line and length bowling. The domestic spotlights for him have been 29 wickets in Saurashtra's 2018-19 Ranji Trophy season. If not quite Umran Malik's raw pace, Sakariya offers strategic variety in the artificial angle of a left-armer and versatility in phases.
The replacement of Umran Malik with Chetan Sakariya by KKR brings an alteration from express pace to left-arm swing expertise. Although Sakariya has variety of skills with accuracy and death-over options, he lacks Umran's raw speed, which will potentially affect the middle-over strike rate of KKR. The IPL experience of Umran and his ability to reverse swing the new ball make him valuable, but KKR might need to experiment with their approach by relying more on pace aggression of Mitchell Starc and Harshit Rana. If utilized optimally, Sakariya would be a go-to asset and not an option to replace.
