Mumbai Indians’ new recruit Tim David is excited for his new stint in the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 where he will get to play alongside India captain Rohit Sharma and West Indies skipper Kieron Pollard. Mumbai bought him for Rs 8.25 crore.
”It is an exciting idea to bat with him. Polly is someone I have admired for his power-hitting and have looked at some of his innings to see how I can do that myself. If we could get going in the middle and death overs, we could take a few games away,” David told mumbaiindians.com.
While talking about Rohit and his approach, David said, ”Rohit Sharma is a world-class player. He just looks so effortless when he bats, it’s very admirable. It is a huge bonus to be able to spend time with class players and try to pick their brains a little bit.”
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”I try to keep it simple. I could come in a lot of different situations but my aim is always to have a positive approach and be willing to take some risks. Sometimes it may not come off but there is no better feeling than hitting one off the middle of the bat and it going for a big six,” he said.
Tim David has the experience of playing for various teams across the world – Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021 IPL, Perth Scorchers and Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League, Lahore Qalandars and Multan Sultans in the Pakistan Super League, Southern Brave in The Hundred and Saint Lucia Kings in the Caribbean Premier League as well. However, Mumbai Indians’ head coach Mahela Jayawardene, who has worked with Tim David in the Hundred, and he terms a ”hot property” in the shortest format as well.
”I think he is a hot property at the moment. In T20 cricket, he is known as a power-hitter. We have always had those options at Mumbai Indians. ‘When we plan the auction and when we knew we had funds available after the Jofra Archer bid, we took into account the auction dynamics because a lot of the uncapped players were available and Tim became a great target for us,” Jayawardene said. ”Like we have the Bumrah-Jofra combination to look forward to, we can have the Pollard-Tim David combination at the back-end of the innings.”
”Tim is a much-improved player in the last few months and he is still young. We look forward to having him in the dressing room. You saw the price (8.25 Crore), it kept going up and many teams were interested in him, not just us. I am sure he will have a fabulous IPL career.”
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Tim David has played for Singapore in international cricket in 14 T20Is, scoring 558 runs at an average of 46.5 and a strike rate of 158.52 since his debut against Qatar in July 2019 as well. He is currently looking forward to utilising the opportunity of facing people like Jasprit Bumrah at the nets to prepare himself better as well.
”One bowler I am looking forward to facing the most in the nets is Bumrah. I know it sounds strange because he is one of the best in the world, but I believe it will be great to test myself against him. I am sure it is going to be hard work,” Tim David concluded.
