IPL 2018: Mahela Jayawardene reveals Mumbai Indians' steal deals

Mumbai Indians were a part of a gruelling two-day auction. The defending champions retained three players namely, captain Rohit Sharma, all-rounder Hardik Pandya and pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah. These retentions were arguably the best out of all the teams as the trio are a part of India’s team in all formats of the game. Mumbai Indians used their RTM cards on Keiron Pollard and Krunal Pandya to make sure they retain the core of the team which helped them lift the IPL trophy for a record third time.

Mustafizur Rahman was definitely one of the steals of the auction. The Bangladeshi youngster rose to fame a few years ago when he spearheaded SunRisers Hyderabad’s bowling attack which won the IPL trophy. The “Fizz” picked up 17 wickets in 16 appearances for the David Warner-led side. His economy rate of 6.9 is amazing considering he bowls in the powerplay and at the death.

The mystery bowler Fizz will look to combine with Jasprit Bumrah and cause havoc to opposition batsmen. Another bargain buy was Evin Lewis. Generally, a fast scoring left-handed batsman, Lewis is the third batsman to score two Twenty20 International centuries. He’s a T20 specialist and is touted as the “next Chris Gayle”. Mustafizur and Lewis were bought for 2.2 crores and 3.8 crores respectively.

Mahela Jayawardene, who has been their coach for a year now, expressed his thoughts post auction. He went on to express his disappointment at not being able to acquire Sanju Samson or KL Rahul. The pair were always going to cost a lot. Sanju was bought by Rajasthan Royals for 8 crores and Rahul will bag 11 crores for Kings XI Punjab. Both of these players were targetted to fill in the wicketkeeper spot for the Mumbai Indians. Although they had 3 keepers last year (Parthiv Patel, Jos Buttler and Ambati Rayudu who can also keep), they felt the need for a change. They ended up buying Ishan Kishan for 6.2 crore which was the 2nd most expensive buy made by Mumbai Indians.

Mumbai Indians’ steal of the day and biggest miss

The former Sri Lankan skipper Mahela said, “I don’t think there was much of a disappointment as such. I think the two steals for us would be Pollard who came at a reasonable price and the fees we got Evin Lewis and Ben Cutting for. Also, The Fizz [Mustafizur] at that price on Saturday and Pat Cummins, considering the Wankhede wicket. I am not disappointed except for Sanju and KL [Rahul], but the way it panned out, it was always going to be difficult to get them.”

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