Srilankan pacer Lasith Malinga has been named as the best bowler in the history of the IPL. A 50-member jury of Star Sports consisting of former players and commentators chose Lasith Malinga over the likes of Sunil Narine and Jasprit Bumrah as the greatest bowler in the history of the IPL.
The panel had to select the best bowler in the IPL history from an elite list of 10 bowlers including Sunil Narine, Dale Steyn, and Jasprit Bumrah among others. Former English cricketer Kevin Pietersen who was also the part of the jury went on to praise the Mumbai Indians’ pacer and said –
I’m going with Lasith. You look at the numbers he has served up and the way he has consistently used that yorker, that makes everyone talk about it. Malinga is my guy. “I would go with Narine, but he has bowled on wickets which helped turn. Also, he has been questioned on a few occasions for this suspect bowling action, so I am afraid to say that I am going with Malinga.
Apart from KP, the likes of Dean Jones, Graeme Smith, Simon Doull, Mathew Hayden, Aakash Chopra, Ian Bishop and Tom Moody all voted in Lasith Malinga’s favour for Greatest Bowler of All-Time award.
Apart from the above-mentioned names of Malinga, Narine, Steyn and Bumrah, the likes of Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Imran Tahir, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Yuzvendra Chahal were also the part of the 10-men nominee list.
In case you don’t know –
Lasith Malinga is the part of the Mumbai Indians set-up since the inaugural season. The pacer has played 122 games for the franchise and accounted for 170 wickets at a strike-rate of 16.62 and a tremendous economy rate of 7.14. He also is a 4-time league winner with the Mumbai-based franchise.