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RCB’s Tim David wants openers Virat Kohli and Phil Salt to hit Jasprit Bumrah’s first ball for a boundary in their IPL 2025 clash against MI.
Virat Kohli vs Jasprit Bumrah — who’ll come on top? (PC: Sportzpics, BCCI)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) finisher Tim David wants his team’s openers Virat Kohli and Phil Salt to hit comeback man Jasprit Bumrah’s first ball for a boundary to make a ‘statement’ in Monday’s IPL 2025 clash against Mumbai Indians (MI). David also said that Bumrah, who is returning after a three months-long injury layoff, will present a challenge that RCB ‘want to have’ and make the league better.
Bumrah suffered a back injury during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy which kept him out of all competitive cricket and the MI‘s first four matches of the season. In that period, MI lost three games to drop to number eight in the points table whereas RCB won two of their first three to sit comfortably at third.
“Yeah Bumrah’s pretty widely recognized as the best bowler going around and that’s the challenge we want to have at RCB,” David said in the pre-match press conference. “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,” he added.
Speaking on how he’d like to face the daunting pacer, David joked that he’d get his ‘toes out of the way’ before adding that he was looking forward to the challenge.
“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.
Bumrah has excellent numbers against RCB, taking 29 wickets in 19 matches at an average of 19.03. David, who played for MI for three seasons (2022-24) has never faced Bumrah in the IPL. They have come across each other for 10 balls in T20Is, where David has scored 15 runs without getting out.
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