Five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions Mumbai Indians (MI) on Sunday stunned everyone by bidding a whopping amount of Rs 8 crore for Jofra Archer. While bidding for the bowler, MI owners seemed unfazed with the fact that Archer won’t feature in the upcoming season due to injury issues.
Archer will now pair up with MI’s premier speedster Jasprit Bumrah next season onwards. Speaking about one of the most exciting buys at the auction, team’s director of cricketing operations Zaheer Khan said it would be great to see the two bowl ‘in tandem’ in the future.
“We’re very excited, two of the world’s best fast bowlers bowling in tandem together,” said Khan to the Star Sports network.
Zaheer when asked about MI going all guns blazing to get wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan, said, “We all love him, he is a young upcoming kid and has been with us for the last four years so we definitely wanted him back. He and Rohit (Sharma) are going to be a force to reckon with at the top.”
On South African Dewald Brevis, the pace bowler said, “We hope that we will grow further and his journey is fast-tracked by being around such high impact experienced (SA) players.”
ALSO READ | IPL 2022 Auctions: From Suresh Raina to Amit Mishra - Is it End of the Road for IPL Veterans?
Singapore big-hitting finisher Tim David was a surprise purchase by MI and head coach Mahela Jayawardene said, “He was on our radar for a while. He has been playing well for the last few months. We knew Jofra (Archer) would come late so we couldn’t go hard in the beginning but needed someone to strengthen our batting so we decided to play a different game altogether. David was part of that plan. We had the purse to go get them both.”
(With IANS Inputs)
Special: Get the Live-Updating IPL 2022 Auction Tally | IPL Mega Auction Live Updates and Cricket Score here