Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 1 : Following Mumbai Indians' (MI) victory over defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Tuesday, team owner Nita Ambani praised the franchise's scouting team for unearthing exceptional talent, including bowlers Ashwani Kumar and Vignesh Puthur, along with wicketkeeper-batter Robin Minz.
Ashwani's historic debut, which saw him take the first-ever four-fer by an Indian on an IPL debut, inspired MI to an eight-wicket win over KKR at their first home game of the season at Wankhede Stadium on Monday. After Ashwani (4/24) and Deepak Chahar (2/19) helped MI skittle out KKR for just 116 runs in 16.2 overs, with Angkrish Raghuvanshi (26) and Ramandeep Singh (22) crossing the 20-run mark, Ryan Rickelton (62* in 41 balls, with four boundaries and five sixes) and Suryakumar Yadav (27* in nine balls, with three fours and two sixes) made sure MI reached the target with 43 balls left.
After the match, Nita Ambani lauded the scouting team for their contributions. "I just want to congratulate everyone. This is what Mumbai Indians is known for. I think today I also want to take this opportunity to thank the scouts of the Mumbai Indians. They have worked very hard. Rahul (Sanghvi, Director of Cricket) is there in the corner. DJ (Dhananjai CKM, Chief Data Performance Manager) with all his stats and the entire scouting team. We have youngsters like Ashwani (Kumar), Vignesh (Puthur) in our team, Robin (Minz), so many of them, and I think we need to thank them also. So let's give a big round of applause to all our scouts," she said.
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MI's young talents have made a huge impact in this IPL so far, with both Vignesh Puthur (3/32) and Ashwani Kumar (4/24) making a mark in their debut matches. Puthur has four wickets in two games at an average of 13.25 and an economy of 8.83. Minz has, however, failed to make an impact with two single-digit scores so far.
MI will next face Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on April 4 in Lucknow. They currently have one win and two losses in the tournament.