Against Gujarat Titans on Monday (April 20), Mumbai Indians selected two players, Danish Malewar and Krish Bhagat, who have never played a professional T20 match.
Who is Danish Malewar, the opening batter from Vidarbha?
Malewar was one of just five players MI signed at the IPL auction last December, for his base price of INR 30 lakh. The 22-year-old made his professional debut in October 2024 for Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy. Aged 21 and in his debut season, he went on to score a century in the tournament final, playing knocks of 153 and 73 against Kerala as Vidarbha won the title.
The top-order batter earned a call-up to the zonal-level Duleep Trophy at the start of the 2025-26 season and struck an unbeaten 198 on his first day, before becoming the first Indian in 81 years to be retired out in first-class cricket. He has scored 1,285 runs in 15 first-class matches so far, averaging 49.42. In his most recent fixture against Uttar Pradesh in January, Malewar scored 80 and 54.
Interestingly, not only has Malewar never played a professional T20 match, but he is also yet to make his List A debut; at the senior level, he has only played red-ball cricket.
He did, however, take part in the 2025 Vidarbha Pro T20 League in 2025 (the league does not have T20 status). Malewar finished as the second-highest run-scorer in the competition, with 318 runs in six innings, averaging 79.5 and striking at 161.4. He also represented the Reliance team at the DY Patil T20 Cup in 2026, impressing with 64 off 42 in a one-run win over Bank of Baroda.
Match 30, Gujarat Titans vs Mumbai Indians
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Who is Krish Bhagat, signed by MI just four days ago?
A seam-bowling all-rounder from Punjab, Bhagat was signed by Mumbai Indians as an injury replacement for Atharva Ankolekar. The 21-year-old made his first-class debut in 2024 and List A debut in 2025; he has taken seven and nine wickets in seven and nine outings respectively in the two formats. Bhagat has 52 List A runs to his name, 51 of them in a single innings from No.8 against Uttarakhand in the Vijay Hazare Trophy last December.
He took 16 wickets in the 2024-25 CK Nayudu Trophy (India's four-day U23 domestic competition) and made 263 runs at an average of 37.6, including one century. In the U23 one-day competition the same season, he averaged 47.8 with the bat and 24.4 with the ball from nine matches. His uncle, Mohinder Bhagat, is the incumbent MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) from Jalandhar West in the state of Punjab.
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