When Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) plays the Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 20 of the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) on Monday, April 7 at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Tim David, a batsman for the team, stated that they will try to target Jasprit Bumrah. MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene has deemed Bumrah fit for the forthcoming match, marking his comeback to action after a four-month absence. The speedster will be looking to make an immediate impact in his first game of the season after suffering an injury during the fifth Test match against Australia in January.
Tim David on Jasprit Bumrah
David was recently questioned regarding RCB's strategy to neutralize Bumrah's threat. The speedster is the best bowler in the world, according to the Australian batter, but the squad is prepared for any challenge and will try to get off to a good start against him.
“Yeah Bumrah’s pretty widely recognized as the best bowler going around and that's the challenge we want to have at RCB. If we're going to go deep in this tournament, we need to beat the best teams, we need to beat the best players. So , hopefully Bumrah is bowling the first over tomorrow night and the first ball goes for 4 or 6 from whoever's opening the batting for us, that'll be a statement. It'll be great to have him back playing in the tournament because the game's better with him in it,” said David in the pre-match press conference.
David said that he was thrilled to be challenged by Bumrah and that, because the speedster had a deadly yorker, he would try to keep his toes away.
“I'll just try and get my toes out of the way, he's got a pretty lethal yorker. He's a brilliant bowler and when you put in big performances against the best teams, against the best players, they're the best feelings you get as a player. So you want to be challenged by the best and I'm looking forward to that,” he added.
David has been playing well this season, as evidenced by his big innings in the last two games against the Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He used one four and three sixes to smash 22* (8) against CSK. However, he hit three fours with two sixes to score 32 (18) against GT. He will try to maintain his strong play as RCB looks to recover from their season-opening defeat to Gujarat.