In Vignesh Puthur, another success story for Mumbai Indians’ scouting team?

Despite the team’s defeat, the Mumbai Indians’ scouting unit may well have raised a toast on Sunday night. Their punt on another unknown quantity, after all, might just have worked, although it’s still early days.When Vignesh Puthur – one of the four debutantes on the night for MI – came on to bowl in the eighth over during his side’s IPL opener, Chennai were strolling in their chase of 156. Perhaps it provided the ideal entry for the 24-year-old as in terms of where the game stood, there wasn’t any real pressure. He had the space to do what he knows best without worrying about the end result. And with his variations, he picked up the wickets of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda to put Chennai under pressure for the first time in the night.
Unearthing new talents away from the cricketing heartlands may have well become a habit these days for Mumbai. After all, from Jasprit Bumrah to the Pandya brothers and Tilak Varma to Nehal Wadhera, they keep doing it season after season. Yet, it is with Vignesh that they have actually taken the giant leap of faith.
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When Mumbai Indians bought Vignesh, who is pursuing an MA in literature, at the auction for a base price of Rs 30 lakh, the road to the IPL looked a dant journey.
Son of an auto rickshaw driver, Vignesh is yet to play senior-level cricket for Kerala. In the Kerala Cricket League, through which MI’s scouting team handpicked him, the 24-year-old didn’t even set the stage on fire and had just two wickets to show from three matches. But he was a rare commodity – a left-arm wr spinner who got the ball to spin both ways as well as bowl orthodox if and when the need arose.
“We have to compliment our scouting guys,” their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said. “The idea has always been about seeing the potential more than anything else. And when we saw him in one of our trials, we saw the potential in him. Rather than looking into how much cricket he’s played in the past. It’s purely the thought that he has the potential. And you saw that today. Never easy, first game against CSK, it’s a big game. But purely the way he responded, hats off to him,” he added.
In the selection trials, despite not having much of a game time at the senior level, MI have seen Vignesh thrive on consency when it comes to getting constant turn and the ability to land the ball in the right areas consently. Though Vignesh lacked match experience, what had also caught MI’s scouting team was the uniqueness that he brought to the table. If the action and yorkers made them turn to Bumrah, in Vignesh’s case it was the variations.Story continues below this ad
“I think the uniqueness. I think in this format, you need to be a little bit different. And you see all the Chinaman bowlers – Kuldeep prior to this has done well. So I think the idea was kind of how we use him in terms of the potential that he has,” Mhambrey said.
This was a moment of triumph for not just MI’s scouting system but also their think tank as to how they groomed him in time for the IPL. In the past, they have taken time to mould their players through their academy and play for their clubs. But with Vignesh, with a lack of experience being amply clear, post-auction, MI put him on a plane to South Africa, where he got the opportunity to mix with some of the best, including Rashid Khan, at MI Cape Town in the SA20.
That tournament, apart from giving him the opportunity to sharpen his skills, also provided him with exposure and a chance to experience the normalcy of being in the same dressing room and space with superstars, which is common in the MI set-up and the IPL. But from the time he was called for the selection trials to his stint as a net bowler in SA20 and in the pre-season camp before the IPL, MI’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey says his calmness has stood out.
“He’s a sweet kid, really,” Mhambrey, who walked him to the team bus from the hotel and to the stadium with an arm around his shoulders on Sunday, said. “I think he’s a lovely kid to have in the team. He’s more like a sponge right now, just absorbing everything, looking around, having conversations. You have heroes, you see them playing on the TV, and all of a sudden you are sharing the dressing room with them, sitting next to someone like Rohit. It’s a dream come true for a lot of these guys, right? So in that sense he is excited. But the way he responded, never looked like he was under pressure,” Mhambrey added.Story continues below this ad
Prior to the IPL, MI tested him at the DY Patil Tournament. Playing for Reliance, he featured in three matches but picked up only two wickets. But still, it is a huge call to unleash him straight away in the middle. What had given MI the confidence was the feedback from their star crew that includes Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma, who all found it hard to pick his variations. “Rohit, Surya, Tilak, all these guys batted against him (in the nets). It wasn’t easy to pick him. We felt that we had the confidence of pushing him in this game. And it turned out to be excellent. It was a good decision,” Mhambrey said.
As far as Vignesh’s bowling goes, it is still hard to decipher. There are obviously slight tweaks in his action when he brings out the variations, but facing him for the first time, batsmen are likely to struggle. “I think nothing fancy,” Mhambrey gave a bit of clues. “He has got the variations and bowls pretty accurate. In this format, I think having the variations is important. You don’t need to be too fancy. If you can exploit your skills properly, I think that’s giving you the best opportunity to do well,” he added.
On Sunday night, Vignesh showed it all at Chepauk. It earned him a pat on the back and some encouraging words from MS Dhoni. And just like that, there’s a new Chinaman in town.