When Sachin Tendulkar asked Malinga to board the bus

Cricket is a very popular sport in India and has a lot of fan following across the country. Fans run around the stadiums, hotels and team buses to catch a glimpse of their favorite cricketers. Due to the presence of a lot of popular cricketers in the Mumbai Indians side, a lot of fans surrounded the team bus when it set off towards the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai for their home game against Kings XI Punjab on Thursday.

Sachin Tendulkar – Mumbai Indians’ ‘icon’, who is currently mentoring the franchise, spotted the famous Malinga doppelganger amongst the handful of fans that had gathered around the bus. The Malinga look-alike was holding a huge poster and was running ahead of the bus. Tendulkar quickly recorded a video of the man and could see the funny side of it. He even said “we will be taking him to Kolkata to have both Malinga’s bowling from either ends”. He followed by saying “Mali get in the bus” as the team exploded in laughter.

Doppelganger first sited at Rajkot

The Sri Lankan doppelganger was first seen at Rajkot in Mumbai Indians’ away game against Gujarat Lions. Even Malinga noticed him on the big screen and was in splits to see the similarities between him and the man. Team coach Mahela Jayawardene even posted a tweet which said that “Lasith found his long lost brother at Rajkot”.

Lasith found his long lost brother in Rajkot..?☺#IPL #MI pic.twitter.com/qc9b5mvm8Y

— Mahela Jayawardena (@MahelaJay) April 29, 2017

The man has since then been quite popular following Mumbai Indians in almost every game. he has caught the wind on social media as well.

So close yet so far

Meanwhile, in their home game against Kings Xi Punjab, Mumbai Indians fell short by 7 runs of recording the highest chase of 231 in the history of the IPL. At one stage, Mumbai looked set to overhaul the target but some smart death bowling by Sandeep Sharma and Mohit Sharma denied Pollard to get 9 from the last four balls.

Table-toppers Mumbai now travels to Kolkata to play their last league game against KKR on Saturday.