Mumbai Indians have received a huge boost after a forgettable start to their Indian Premier League campaign this year. The three-time winners will have the services of their star pacer Lasith Malinga for the entire season once the Sri Lankan veteran joins the team. Previously, Malinga was set to miss at least the first six games of the season.
With the Sri Lankan selectors making it mandatory for the players to play in the Super Provincial One Day domestic tournament in order to be considered for the World Cup selection, Malinga had decided to give almost the first half of the league a miss. Malinga had himself told a leading news outlet that it would be better for the franchise to sign a replacement as he would miss a significant part of the competition.
However, the BCCI later had a talk with Sri Lanka Cricket over the matter as the latter had not initially announced about their players’ unavailability. The Sri Lanka Cricket have now changed their decision and allowed Malinga to join IPL.
In a statement on Tuesday, SLC said they decided to release Malinga because “he would get an opportunity to play with much stronger opposition in the IPL tournament, which consist of international players.”
SLC decided to give permission to Lasith Malinga to play in the ongoing IPL.The management decided to release Malinga from participating in the Super Provincial; since he would get an opportunity to play with much stronger opposition in IPL;which consist of international players
— Sri Lanka Cricket ?? (@OfficialSLC) March 26, 2019
The right-arm pacer, who has played for Mumbai Indians in his entire IPL career and is the leading IPL wicket-taker, had failed to find a buyer in the last auction. Later, Mumbai Indians had appointed him as their mentor. But in this season’s auction, Mumbai Indians bought him at his base prize of INR 2 crore. So far, Malinga has played 127 games for Mumbai Indians in the IPL and Champions League T20 and is the highest-wicket taker for the franchise with 179 scalps at an economy rate of 6.88.
Having him back will be a huge boost for Mumbai as their pace department is looking weak at the moment. They have already lost the services of Adam Milne due to an injury while Jasprit Bumrah could miss some games after hurting his shoulder in the 37-run defeat to Delhi Capitals.