Mumbai Indians is the most valuable IPL franchise in terms of brand value at nearly $ 115 million. It is also the most successful IPL team having won 5 IPL trophies and 2 Champion League T20 trophies. The MI team likes to address itself as a family and has built a strong core of players. However, there are some players that are not generally associated with the MI team but in reality, were once part of the MI Paltan.
We look at 5 such players who once played for MI but did not become popular during their time in Mumbai.
Ashish Nehra
Nehra made quite a name for himself as India’s ace left-arm white ball pacer. In the first IPL, he played for the MI team. In the 14 matches, he picked up 12 wickets and made an impactful IPL debut. However, his stay at MI was short and he moved to Delhi in the next season.
Glenn Maxwell
The Australian power-hitter came to MI for a solitary season in 2013. He happened to just get 3 games and notched up a mere 36 runs in total. Maxwell was young and there were far more experienced batters at that time. He moved to Punjab in 2014 and was one of their best batters in 2014. He scored a mammoth 552 in the 2014 season.
Nicholas Pooran
The current West Indian batting sensation was in MI for the 2017 season. Unfortunately, he did not find a place in the playing eleven in a single match. MI had quite a few West Indian big hitters in form of Pollard, Lewis, and Simons. Pooran then moved to Punjab in 2019 and had an incredible 2020 IPL for Punjab where he scored 353 runs in the season.
Ajinkya Rahane (2008-2010)
Rahane was part of the Mumbai set-up for the first three seasons but did not find much game time at his preferred position. He played a total of 10 matches in the 2008 and 09 seasons combined. He scored a mere 150 runs across the two seasons. Thereafter, he moved to Rajasthan where he came into his own. He notched up 560, 488, 339, 540, and 480 runs between the 2012 and 2016 season.
Jos Buttler (2016-2017)
Buttler made his IPL debut with Mumbai in 2016 and stayed there for two seasons. He managed to play 24 matches across two seasons and scored nearly 520 runs. However, his performances were not enough for Mumbai Indians to retain him. He could not produce any performance that would light up the tournament.
His Mumbai Indians hangover was dusted when he moved to Rajasthan in 2018 and got 5 consecutive 50 plus scores and accumulated a massive 548 runs in that season. Ever since Buttler has gone strength to strength in Rajasthan and has now become their top performer.
