Defending champions Mumbai
Indians, already with the best squad depth in the tournament, on Thursday further bolstered their bowling options during the mini-auction ahead of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Mumbai-based franchise acquired the services of New Zealand paceman Adam Milne for Rs 3.2 crore, Australian paceman Nathan Coulter-Nile for Rs 5 crore and Indian spinner Piyush Chawla for Rs 2.4 crore.

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The most successful franchise in history of the tournament have always had a conservative approach to the auctions and have rarely gone overboard with spending on marquee players.

And they kept a similar approach this time, pulling out of a massive bidding war for Chris Morris, the most expensive player in IPL history at Rs 16.25 crores.

The
defending champions retained most of the core squad that led them to their unprecedented
fifth IPL title in the UAE last year and released a total of seven players.

Among them is
Lasith Malinga, Mitch McClenaghan, James Pattinson, Nathan Coulter-Nile,
Sherfane Rutherford, Prince Balwant Rai and Digvijay Deshmukh. Ahead of the
auction, they had a purse of Rs 15.35 crores with seven slots, including four
overseas slots, to fill.

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With their
priority being acquiring an overseas pacer, to replace their now retired
leading wicket-taker in the tournament Malinga and support Jasprit Bumrah and Trent
Boult – who were effective in the powerplay overs, Milne might prove to be a smart buy for the Rohit Sharma-led side.

They also re-acquired Aussie medium-pacer Coulter-Nile, who was rotated along with James Pattinson for one overseas bowler spot and was released ahead of the auction, along with South African paceman Marco Jansen at his base price of Rs 20 lakh.   

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New Zealand all-rounder James Neesham was also bought for his base price of Rs 50 lakh. Mumbai were the sole bidders for former Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun, who they signed for his base price of Rs 20 lakh.

Adding to their spin options, which includes Krunal Pandya and Rahul Chahar, they bought 32-year-old leg-spinner Chawla. 23-year-old right-arm pacer Yudhvir Charak’s acquisition, for his base price of Rs 20 lakh, rounds off Mumbai’s squad for IPL 2021.  

Mumbai Indians full squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock,
Aditya Tare, Saurabh Tiwary, Jasprit Bumrah, Dhawal Kulkarni, Trent Boult, Jayant
Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Chris Lynn, Rahul
Chahar, Hardik Pandya, Anmolpreet Singh, Mohsin Khan, Anukul Roy, Ishan Kishan,
Adam Milne, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Marco Jansen James Neesham, Arjun Tendulkar, Yudhvir Charak.