For two consecutive IPL seasons, the dream of playing Jofra Archer and Jasprit Bumrah together still lingers on for Mumbai Indians as the preceding season didn’t have Archer with the English fast bowler recovering from an injury while for this year they will be missing the likes of Jasprit Bumrah as the Indian quick is now in rehab after a surgery in order to be available for the upcoming WTC finale and the World Cup that is slated to be played later in the year.
However, Mumbai Indians’ bowling coach, Mark Boucher believes that the loss of Jasprit Bumrah may force the five-times winner to package their bowling options in a different way and that can be a surprise that no other teams in the tournament may be ready for. However, the South African coach also made it clear that it can only come through experimentation.
Talking in Mumbai, Boucher said, “Losing Bumrah has been a big loss for us, I’ll be honest with that. But by losing a player sometimes you get opportunity. The way Mumbai Indians have selected their squads over the last few years has been…how you select your playing XI and then your back-up XI and then you invest in a couple of youngsters for the future. It’s now time for those youngsters to show up and basically get the opportunities.”
Here is what Mark Boucher had to say about his team’s bowling mentality
He further added, “For me, the big thing about this season for our bowling line-up is we have got experience, but we’ve got one or two little spaces for couple of the juniors to come through and showcase their skills. I’m looking forward to seeing them. The IPL is a massive event and it’s going to be a great opportunity for some of our young boys to really show up. We’ve got some great variation in our bowling attack; I think our batting is very very strong. But our bowling is almost going to be a surprise package.”
Rohit Sharma chimed in with his five pence, adding, “Leading into that first game guys pretty much know what we are expecting out of them but the last thing I want to do is put too much pressure on them. I think it won’t be fair, especially the guys who have not played IPL before. And there are a few guys in our squad who have not played IPL before. But if they get an opportunity to play, my job is to keep it very simple with them, and make sure that how they play their first-class game for their state, what they do in Ranji Trophies, in club cricket, try and replicate the same in IPL as well.”
Rohit Sharma shares latest update about Jasprit Bumrah
Rohit further added, “We’ve got a couple of guys who can do that job for us which Bumrah used to do. We’ll keep an eye on that and hopefully whatever space Bumrah was in, the other guys can come in and do the job for us. And wherever those guys have played, they’ve done that job for that particular team.”
Boucher concluded by talking about how Arjun Tendulkar can also be an option, stating, “He’s been playing quite a bit of cricket in the last six months as a bowler, it’s been very good for him. If we can have him available for selection, it will be very good for us.”
