The defending champions, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), had a terrible start to their innings when coming to bat against Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Wankhede Stadium in today’s clash. MI’s pacers were on song from ball one as Trent Boult took the wicket of Sunil Narine and Deepak Chahar bagged the wicket of Quinton de Kock.
But then, MI introduced the debutant Ashwani Kumar, a left-arm pacer from Punjab, who dismissed KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane on the first delivery of his IPL career. KKR were left three wickets down at just 25/3. It was a full and outside-off delivery, which Rahane sliced straight to deep backward point, where Tilak Varma took the catch.
Who is Ashwani Kumar?
This young Punjab pacer impressed in the Sher-E-Punjab T20 Trophy last year, and he is known for his pace variations and good, deceptive bouncers. Ashwani also can bowl very good yorkers.
In 2022, he made his debut for Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Tournament, where he played four games. In those games, he picked up three wickets at an economy of 8.50. Apart from that, this young pacer has played two first-class and four List-A games.
In the mega auction, MI spent ₹30 lakh to acquire his services. However, this season, he is not the first young domestic talent to whom MI have handed a debut. First, it was the young spinner from Kerala, Vignesh Puthur, against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and then it was Andhra’s Satyanarayana Raju, who played against Gujarat Titans (GT).
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