Mumbai Indians initiate an advanced training camp at their fortress - The Wankhede Stadium

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 energetic extravaganza will be beginning in less than a week period of time and already the world has started the reverse clock counting for the first encounter of the upcoming season. In the opening game of the eleventh edition of the global Twenty20 tournament, the defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) would be facing the returning Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on April 7 at the iconic Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai. Both the two heavyweight franchises have already started regrouping their players during the course of some hard training sessions and the other different types of fitness drills.

MI boys back for preparations at their fortress

The Mumbai franchise enforced their first training camp ahead of the upcoming season of the IPL, last week on Monday, in Navi Mumbai at the newly developed cricket facility inside the Reliance Corporate Park. But as the opening match of the season is just days away to start, the defending champions have shifted their training base to their prestigious fortress ground in the competition, that is the hosts home venue Wankhede Stadium. The energetic moods at the training sessions received a great boost as their skipper Rohit Sharma also joined his team for the preparations to defend the IPL title.

The MI star overseas recruit from Bangladesh, Mustafizur Rahman has landed in the city and also took part in the preparations camp set up at the Wankhede stadium.

The MI support staff this year would be welcoming an old dark horse fast bowler but in a new avatar as the Lankan fast bowler, Lasith Malinga will be guarding his new role of a bowling mentor of the Mumbai franchise. He along with former Kiwi fast bowler Shane Bond was seen giving some essential learnings to the fast bowlers of the side.

Mumbai Indians have combined a very good fast bowling attack for their quest to defend the title this edition. Their bowling attack includes the likes of the now pretty experienced Jasprit Bumrah, the quick Aussie Patt Cummins, T20 specialist Mustafizur Rahman, Kiwi fast bowler Mitchell McClenaghan and Pradeep Sangwan, as their main quick bowlers. They have a quite balanced set of options in the various batting positions accompanied with some decent spin bowling options and also have some great all-rounders that have the ability to emerge as match-winners in any Twenty20 game.

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