NEWS
Follow UsMumbai Indians splurged 8.25 crore for IPL 2022, making him one of the costliest purchases of the year, but curiously, dropped him from the squad after a couple of games of underperformance. Even though they have played multiple games with less than the allowed permit of four overseas players, Tim David hasn’t come anywhere close to the selection, reflecting a muddled strategy that now has compounded overtime to six losses in six games.
Previewing the clash between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians exclusively for Cricket.com, Graeme Swann stated that he would like to know why David has been dropped from the squad despite the side losing six games in a row so far.
“Two giants of the IPL are at the bottom of the table at the moment. But I don’t see both of them being down there at the end of the season. CSK managed to lose their last game from a position they should have won and it is getting longer and longer to see Mumbai’s charge. It is just not happening yet. Surely they are going to come good at some stage. But whoever lose this game, the season is over for them,” Swann told Cricket.com.
“I have no idea what is happening with Tim David. They just need him at the moment. Whether he missed the bus or missed the training. But you think at some point, he is gonna come in at some point. They paid a lot of money for him. It is sad that we got to see him only in the dugout rather than seeing him in the middle. I would love to see him play.”
Mumbai are facing a mini-crisis of sorts as far as their bowling is concerned. Even though Jasprit Bumrah is putting up the hard yards, he hasn’t been helped much by other players in the squad, especially the overseas quicks. Pointing that out, Swann said things have not gone in favour of their pacers for multiple reasons, including the venues and the kind of wickets they have been served.
“Tymal Mills’ confidence is absolutely through the floor at the moment. He needs a couple of games on the sidelines to get that confidence back. One thing that is going against these bowlers - playing at the Brabourne Stadium or in Pune, they are unbelievable places to bat. They have small boundaries, incredible wickets, and got very good pace and carry.
“Even though quicker wickets should have helped the quicker bowlers more, strangely the batters have used it to bash the pacers all around. All these bowlers now need is wickets that hold a little bit, of extra pace through the air coupled with the slow bounce off the pitch. Mumbai haven’t got them anywhere they have played so far.
For Chennai, things are not better either. In the games their batters clicked, bowlers failed to deliver, and vice-versa. In the last game, despite pinning Gujarat Titans under the mat for the majority of the innings, one bad over from Chris Jordan changed the dynamics altogether. Swann, who is not ready to drop Jordan yet, believes that CSK should refrain from handing him the ball in death overs.
“When you bowl in the death, you can either be a hero or an absolute villain. And he was kind of perceived as a villain the other night because of the brilliance of Rashid Khan with the bat. What a match for him in the first game as captain! But I know how good a bowler he is at the death. Sometimes at the death, this happens to English bowlers a lot.
“If you go back to the World T20 final in 2016, Ben Stokes gave away four sixes. He bowled four slot balls and all were dispatched. You know slot balls can go for sixes and you can come up with four-five different variations. But under pressure, that often doesn’t come to mind. I do feel for Chris. He is a great lad. I wouldn’t quickly drop him because I know he is worth a lot to the team. But maybe not bowl him at the death,” the former English spinner concluded.
