IPL 2021: Trent Boult and Shane Bond arrive in Abu Dhabi to join Mumbai Indians camp ahead of second half
Trent Boult and Shane Bond have recently arrived in Abu Dhabi to join the Mumbai Indians camp ahead of the second half of the IPL 2021. Most of the Indian domestic players of the Mumbai side are already in UAE and have begun training for the second half of the tournament.
Shane Bond and Boult will now have to finish quarantine before joining the rest of the MI contingent in the training camp. The Mumbai Indians franchise shared a post with a photo of the duo on its official Twitter handle on Saturday to reveal the same.
They captioned it:
Arrived at an express pace from Welcome home, Boulty and Bondy! #OneFamily #MumbaiIndians #IPL2021 @ShaneBond27
Shane Bond has been the team's bowling coach for the last few years. Trent Boult is one of the main bowling weapons. In the first half of the IPL, Boult scalped eight wickets across seven matches at an average of 27.87, with 3/28 being his best figures.
"Shane Bond will hopefully bring some tactical insight for the T20 World Cup" - New Zealand head coach Gary Stead
The New Zealand cricket board recently recruited Shane Bond to their coaching set-up for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup in UAE and Oman. After this development, New Zealand head coach Gary Stead shed some light on the thought process behind that decision.
He revealed that Shane Bond's tactical inputs from the experience of being involved in the IPL just before the World Cup would help the New Zealand side. On the matter, Gary Stead said:
“Shane’s been in our environment before and understands what we’re about. Being in the UAE (with the IPL) immediately prior to the world cup... he’ll hopefully bring some tactical insight into what’s been happening in the competition. He’ll be an extra set of hands, especially around the bowlers, working with the spin and the pace bowlers and developing their plans in a tournament that moves pretty quick - so we need to be one step ahead of other teams.”
Coming back to the IPL, Shane Bond will be hoping that the Mumbai Indians bowling unit continues to flourish in the second half. The performances of pacers Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah will be pivotal to the team's hopes of winning their third consecutive IPL trophy win in the coming months.