Mumbai Indians’ bowling coach Shane Bond on Friday was left impressed by the talent shown by youngsters Tilak Varma and Dewald Brevis in IPL 2022. In this edition of the league, Varma and Brevis have made the cricketing world sit up and take notice of their batting talent.
In three matches, Varma has amassed 121 runs at an average of 60.50 and a strike rate of 161.33. The young left-handed batter is in the seventh spot on the Orange Cap list. Brevis, who made heads turn in the Men’s U19 World Cup this year with 506 runs in six matches, sparkled with a cameo of 29 against Kolkata Knight Riders.
“It’s been a great squad to be working with so far, a lot of young talent. And obviously to see someone like Tilak coming in and playing as well as he has is a surprise for everyone — not surprising in terms of his talent, but for someone to fit in so seamlessly and have success as he does, has been brilliant. The same as Dewald. There’s no doubting his talent in the nets. But it’s one thing to have talent, it’s another to transition it, so he made it really nice in the last game,” said Bond in pre-match comments released by the franchise.
Though Bond admitted that Mumbai wears a new look after the mega auction in February, he is excited by young players like Varma and Brewis becoming critical players for the franchise in the future.
“Our squad is obviously different from the previous years. I think, with ten teams, the talent is spread a little bit thinner, so it’s hard to make a judgment on your squad until you look long-term and you give these players opportunities and see some success that we’ve had.”
“The next three-four years, whatever it might be in this auction period is a long time. But we take a great deal of heart from the way those two players, in particular, have started. And there are some other players on the sidelines who are itching for a chance and who would do very well when they get the opportunity.”
With Mumbai itching to break their winless run when they face Royal Challengers Bangalore at MCA Stadium on Saturday, Bond feels that motivating Rohit Sharma and Co is something that he doesn’t need to work on.
“Motivation is not something I need to work on, these guys are all motivated. Every time we play, particularly a game against RCB is always a fun game. So in terms of motivation, that’s a given in this team. One of the things that are also talked about is energy. So motivation, energy, is just expected. That’s what we do, we turn up ready to play. I certainly can’t fault the guys in terms of that.”
Bond signed off by saying that the side will be backing Australia pacer Daniel Sams to come good after being hit for 35 runs by Pat Cummins in Mumbai’s six-wicket loss to Kolkata.
“Daniel is an experienced player and he would admit himself that his own performance hasn’t been up to his own expectations. I know he is disappointed with his performance but that’s the nature of T20. Every player in some part of the season will be disappointed with the performances.”
“It’s a game where it can be mostly hit or miss and he certainly missed a couple of times. But you just get back to work, get back to doing those things which he does well and hopefully get the chance to turn around those performances that he’s had. Whether it’s Daniel or anyone else, our message has always been to stick together, the support for each other is always strong and it is no different in this case.”
