Calls for Mumbai Indians to recall million-dollar Aussie recruit Tim David are growing louder after another dismal batting display consigned the franchise to their eighth straight defeat in this year's Indian Premier League.
The 26-year-old middle-order power hitter again watched on from the dugout as Lucknow Super Giants restricted Mumbai to 8-132 from 20 overs in reply to their under-par target of 6-168 at Wankhede Stadium.
Only Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma, West Indies superstar Kieron Pollard and Thakur Tilak Varma could manage double figures as they fell 36 runs short, with South African prodigy Dewald Brevis – who seems to be keeping David out of the side – scoring just three.
Rohit was asked after the loss if David would come into consideration for the next match with Mumbai yet to register a win this season but avoided mentioning the Hobart Hurricanes batter by name during his response.
Despite David being dropped after the opening two matches – where he scored 12 and one – Rohit explained they needed to give enough chances to players selected in the XI to prove themselves.
"Looking at how the tournament has gone, everyone has come into the discussion, there's no doubt about that," he said.
"We've got to make sure that whoever is playing in the XI, we give them enough games because at the end of the day you want a settled team.
"No matter what is happening on the field you can't look at the other option unless the guy's played a few games because they need to settle down.
"(It's) relatively a very new team so their roles, what they do for different teams, when they play for their country, it's different. When they come here, we expect something different from them so keeping that in mind we need to make sure they get enough chances and opportunities.
"We tried not to make too many changes … but when you lose games there's always discussion about who can come in and who can go out.
"As far as I'm concerned, I want to make sure whoever plays gets enough opportunity to prove themselves."
David was dropped for Mumbai's third match of the campaign after they splashed A$1.53m on the right-hander in February's player auction.
Coming into the IPL, David amassed 278 runs at a blistering strike rate of 194 during the Pakistan Super League in January and February and boasts an impressive career T20 average of 32.96 at a strike rate of 159.
Each IPL team is only allowed four overseas players in their XI and with experienced allrounder Pollard a lock in the Mumbai side and 18-year-old Brevis picked instead of David, the remaining two international spots have been filled by fast bowlers Daniel Sams, Riley Meredith, and Englishman Tymal Mills.
Mumbai head coach Mahela Jayawardena said he would review their latest loss and chat with the rest of the coaches to make some plans for their remaining six matches.
"Obviously, batting has been a concern for us, we haven't been able to execute, especially on some good wickets we've batted under-par," the Sri Lankan great said.
"This is a senior group who understands the conditions and has performed in the past, but we just need to keep pushing and if we need to make those changes, we will. We've had few changes (so far), we wanted to keep the batting consistent but obviously there are concerns we are not being consistent whether we are batting first or chasing totals down."
Mumbai's next match is Sunday morning Australian time when they take on a Rajasthan Royals outfit featuring back-to-back centurion Jos Buttler in their line-up.
Australians in IPL 2022
Delhi Capitals: Mitchell Marsh, David Warner
Gujarat Titans: Matthew Wade
Kolkata Knight Riders: Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch
Lucknow Super Giants: Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye
Mumbai Indians: Tim David, Daniel Sams, Riley Meredith
Punjab Kings: Nathan Ellis
Rajasthan Royals: Nathan Coulter-Nile
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Glenn Maxwell, Josh Hazlewood, Jason Behrendorff
https://www.cricket.com.au/news/tim...t-sharma-indian-premier-league-ipl/2022-04-25
