'It's now time for....,' MI Head Coach backs the Youngsters

image-lg2b76t9Tilak Varma was the lone shining light for MI against RCB [iplt20.com]

Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher believes that the youngsters in whom the franchise has invested in the past few seasons will eventually come good in the ongoing edition of the Tata IPL.

The five-time champions kept up their tradition of losing their opening game of the season as they were well-and-truly thumped by a rampaging Royal Challengers Bangalore by 7 wickets at the Chinnaswamy Stadium last week.

Similar issues plagued the Mumbai Indians in the last game as their opening pair once again failed to provide them a good start on what was a placid surface.

Then, their bowling attack, including the much-hyped Jofra Archer was taken to the cleaners by the opening duo of Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli.

Amid all this, there were a few positives for the Mumbai Indians; the biggest of them being the continued good work done by 20-year-old Tilak Varma.

Varma, the lone shining light in an otherwise wretched campaign for MI last year, picked off from where he had left in 2022, as he showed remarkable temperament and of course, immense skill against both pace and spin to single-handedly take his side to a comfortable total.

Varma smashed an unbeaten 46-ball 84, with the help of 9 four and 4 sixes.

Apart from him, young Nehal Wadhera showed immense promise during his brisk 13-ball 21.

Speaking to the media ahead of MI's marquee clash against CSK next weekend, Mark Boucher backed his youngsters to continue doing the good work right through the season.

"The IPL is a massive event and it's going to be a great opportunity for some of our young boys to really show up," he said.

"The way Mumbai Indians have selected their squads over the last few years has been, how you invest in youngsters for the future. It's now time for those youngsters to show up and basically get the opportunities," the former South African head coach said.

Mumbai Indians will look to shrug off the ignominy of a chastening campaign opener defeat when they host the Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium on April 08.