Mumbai Indians (MI), the five-time champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), have announced that they have signed right-arm fast bowler Sandeep Warrier as a replacement for the injured Jasprit Bumrah ahead of the IPL 2023 season.
Sandeep, who made his debut for India in 2021, has played over 200 games in the domestic circuit, with 69 of them in the T20 format, and has taken 362 wickets across formats in his career so far. He will be joining the MI squad before their first game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL 2023. The team will be hoping that Sandeep and Jofra Archer will hit top form in the absence of Bumrah as the Mumbai Paltan aim to bounce back from a dismal last season.
In IPL 2022, MI finished last with just four wins and 10 losses in 14 games, which was their worst performance across all 15 editions. This poor show coincided with their captain Rohit Sharma’s worst season as well. He finished the season without scoring a fifty, and registered his lowest numbers with the bat since the competition began.
Bumrah, who has been MI’s saviour with the ball, will miss IPL 2023 after undergoing back surgery. Despite the availability of Archer, Bumrah’s absence cannot be filled. Furthermore, the team will also be without Australian pacer Jhye Richardson, who has undergone hamstring surgery and will miss the entire IPL tournament.
MI were without any frontline spinner in IPL 2022, which was felt as a void in the team. This could again be a concern for the team as the most noticeable name in their roster this year is veteran spinner Piyush Chawla, who last played an IPL game two years ago for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
