Mumbai, May 1: Mumbai Indians (MI) have signed leg-spinner Raghu Sharma as a replacement for Vignesh Puthur, who has been ruled out of the remainder of the IPL 2025 due to injury, the franchise said on Thursday.

This marks Raghu’s maiden stint in the IPL. He joins MI at the base price of Rs 30 lakh from the RAPP list.

Raghu, born on March 11, 1993, in Jalandhar, Punjab, is a right-arm leg-break bowler. He has represented Punjab and Puducherry in domestic cricket. In 11 first-class matches, he has taken 57 wickets at an average of 19.59, with best bowling figures of 7/56.

In List A cricket, he has claimed 14 wickets in 9 matches, with best figures of 4/37. He has also featured in 3 T20 matches, picking up 3 wickets.

Vignesh played five games for Mumbai Indians, picking up six wickets and had a debut to remember with three wickets against CSK. A right-handed batter and a left-arm wrist spinner was one of the young gems that MI have unearthed over the years, joining the likes of Saurabh Tiwary, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma among others.

Vignesh made his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians even before playing senior representative cricket for his state. Plucked out of the Kerala T20 league, where he played for Alleppey Ripples, he made a successful step-up to the IPL, dismissing Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda on debut against Chennai Super Kings, finishing with the figures of 3-32 in his four-over spell.

He then registered the figures of 1-21, 1-31, 1-10 and 0-15 in the next four games he played before getting ruled out of the tournament due to injury.

Before his IPL stint, Vignesh served as a net bowler for MI Cape Town and had the opportunity to train with Rashid Khan, one of the finest wrist-spinners in T20 cricket.

Mumbai Indians, who had a shaky start of the season, now have comfortably placed in the top three in the standing after registering five wins on the trot.

(IANS)

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