Bengaluru, January 20: Mumbai Indians is one of the best-balanced side in the IPL, evidenced by their five titles under skipper Rohit Sharma. Fire-cracker batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav, useful all-rounders like Hardik Pandya and spot-on bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah make them a formidable unit.
It was expected that they will be a side player in the upcoming IPL auction ahead of the IPL 2021, and it transpired thus as they released 7 players ahead of the IPL 13. The biggest omission was that of pacer Lasith Malinga, their trusted soldier since early seasons of the IPL and till now he has not played for any other franchise too.
The Lankan pacer is the highest wicket-taker in the IPL with 170 wickets from just 122 matches and was a part of Mumbai's 4 title wins. He missed the IPL 2020 because of staying back in Colombo to attend to his ailing father. But with touching 40, it was expected that Malinga will be released and it is possible that they might acquire his presence in some form like mentor or bowling coach.
Otherwise, the Mumbai outfit followed the expected pattern ahead of the auction. Here's the full list of released and retained players.
1. Retained players: Batsmen: Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (WK), Chris Lynn, Anmolpreet Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Aditya Tare (WK); All-rounders: Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy; Bowlers: Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Rahul Chahar, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan.
2. Released players: Lasith Malinga, Mitch McClenaghan, James Pattinson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Sherfane Rutherford, Prince Balwant Rai, Digivijay Deshmukh.