Mumbai: Mumbai Indians, the five-time winners of the Indian Premier League (IPL), marked their return to their home ground, Wankhede stadium, after a gap of two years.
As per a release from the franchise, the players were all excited to be at the Wankhede Stadium as they started their training session for the upcoming IPL 2023 Saturday. The players had intense training under the floodlights, sweating it out in the nets and engaging with the coaching team on training and techniques.
In IPL 2022, Mumbai Indians, led by India’s all-format captain Rohit Sharma, had finished at bottom of the points table, winning just four out of 14 league stage matches. For IPL 2023, they will be without their fast-bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah for the first time in ten years, due to a back injury.
Moreover, they will be without Australia fast bowler Jhye Richardson, who recently underwent hamstring surgery to fix his long-standing issues. As of now, Mumbai hasn’t named replacements for Bumrah and Richardson.
In terms of the coaching staff, Kieron Pollard will be the batting coach for this season. They also have a new head coach former South African coach Mark Boucher, with ex-USA coach and experienced Indian domestic coach J. Arunkumar being the assistant batting coach.
They are also joined by Shane Bond and James Pamment as bowling and fielding coaches of the side respectively. In the IPL 2023 player auction held in December last year, Mumbai acquired the services of Australia’s fast-bowling all-rounder Cameron Green for a whopping INR 17.5 crore.
They also picked veteran India leg-spinner Piyush Chawla, uncapped South Africa all-rounder Duan Jansen, Kerala wicketkeeper-batter Vishnu Vinod, Mumbai left-arm spinner Shams Mulani, Punjab left-handed batter Nehal Wadhera and Haryana left-arm spinner Raghav Goyal.
Mumbai will open their IPL 2023 campaign against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru April 2.
IANS