Mumbai Indians owner Akash Ambani on Monday expressed his delight after succeeding in his plans to pair the peerless Jasprit Bumrah with New Zealand pace great Trent Boult for the 2025 IPL.
MI have zeroed in on their playing 12 which includes the bowling partnership of Boult with Bumrah, said Ambani during the second day of the IPL mega auction here.
The five-time champions had unsuccessfully paired Bumrah with Jofra Archer over the last two editions but the continuous absence of the English bowler due to injuries hampered the team's plans.
"Trent Boult and Bumrah are back, that's the partnership that we really wanted. (The) left-armers are a point of difference for us, especially in the bowling line-up," Ambani told the media during his press conference with Andy Flower, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru head coach.
"A lot of the things get dictated, as Andy will tell you, by auction order. You don't kind of get, you can't have a preference on a certain player. It doesn't work like that. We are very, very happy to get Boulty back, of the person (that he is) and of the skill set," he added.
Ambani said it took a lot of convincing for them to go after the rookie Afghanistan spinner Allah Ghaznafar, who was added to the roster for Rs 4.80 crore.
"It takes a lot of convincing for us to go for a foreign spinner," Ambani said.
"The ones that we have bid really high for in this auction (in the past), we went a couple of guys before him, but the list has included (Sunil) Narine, Rashid Khan and (Mohammad) Nabi as the all-rounder. But specialist foreign spinners, it takes a lot of convincing for us to go for." "We really rated Allah as a package. So happy to have him," he added.
Ambani said losing out on Robin Minz, who was roped in by Gujarat Titans for Rs 3.60 crore in the last auction, was something that made him sad but the Jharkhand wicketkeeper-batter will grow several folds in the Mumbai Indians set-up.
"(He reminds of) MS Dhoni or Ishan Kishan? Both, right? Because keeper and left-armer. Because he bats down. Yeah, very happy with Robin," Ambani said.
"Robin, again, he was part of our development tour two years ago. (I) was very sad to have lost out on him last year. That was the one target that we lost out from our top targets last year.
"Our set-up will be a point of difference for him because he is a starter in our set-up," he said.
Ambani said picking South African wicketkeeper-batter Ryan Rickleton, who top-scored for MI Cape Town in the SA20 competition with 530 runs, was a part of the franchise's developmental program which they wanted to persist with.
"The first time we actually took Ryan, (which) we do now in the summer a development camp for our global players. And the last year we did it in the UK. Two years ago we did it in the UK. Ryan went off and scored a lot of runs there, performed in SA20," he said.
"That's something that we wanted to have that continuity factor through IPL too, and hopefully the other leagues," Ambani added.
Phil Salt to partner Virat Kohli at the top
RCB head coach Andy Flower confirmed England batter Phil Salt will partner Virat Kohli at the top of the order for his side in the next IPL.
"We got a lot of our first options, actually. We're really happy with where we stand at the moment. We've got power up front to an opening batsman like Salt to partner Virat, was really important for us to have that sort of aggression to partner Virat," he said.
"We've got power in the middle, batting, absolutely. (Liam) Livingston is really exciting to have alongside Rajat (Patidar) and Jitesh (Sharma). We know that he is a man probably still with the best ahead of him." Flower said the addition of veteran India seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar along with Krunal Pandya in the bowling unit, which also includes Josh Hazlewood, will serve them well.
"It was really great to get Bhuvi today. That level of skill, along with Krunal's level of skill, will complement Hazlewood coming back to RCB. It would be great to have him back at the club," he said.
"Yash Dayal, we saw what he did last year. We've got Rasik Salaam vying for a place as well. So that sort of skill in the bowling department is what you need at Chinnaswamy (Stadium)," he said.
Flower said RCB wanted to fix on an opening batter which did not work in favour of the former captain Faf du Plessis.
"There were multiple discussions about Faf du Plessis. He's been a wonderful leader for RCB. He's a wonderful captain, amazing human being," he said.
"And he's in great form as well. But yesterday, we wanted to secure an opening batsman and did so, and got a batter-keeper in the bargain. So unfortunately, Faf, it didn't fit for Faf to come back on this occasion," he said.
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