Head coach Jayawardene reflects on adding Ghazanfar, Santner to MI squad

Mahela Jayawardene. Pic/PTI

Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene reflected on adding Mitchell Santner and Allah Ghazanfar to the squad ahead of the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

New Zealand's Mitchell Santner joined the Mumbai-based franchise during the IPL 2025 mega-auction. Coming in at the base price of Rs 2 crore, MI started the bidding for NZ's premier white-ball spinner. No other franchise showed interest, which confirmed his switch to Wankhede.

Several international spinners were left unsold while young Afghanistan spinner Allah Ghazanfar was picked up by Mumbai Indians (MI) for Rs 4.80 crore.

Speaking in a video shared on Mumbai Indians' official social media handle, Jayawardene said that there were a lot more variations and x-factor spinners at the IPL 2025 mega-auction when it came to overseas options for which they added Allah and Santner in the squad.

"Obviously, we have Hardik as well as a genuine bowling option. So that's why we wanted to add that extra Indian bowler so that we could pivot to the overseas spin options. Because we felt that in the auction, there was a lot more variations and x-factor spinners in the auction when it came to overseas options. So like other teams have done that in the past, so we wanted to see that options openly, So to do that, we had to change our thinking like the way we usually play but still have those options available. So that's why we went with Allah and Santner as options, so we could pivot if we want to," Jayawardene said.

Allah Ghazanfar made his debut for Afghanistan recently. He got a six-wicket haul on his debut and has 12 wickets in eight ODIs so far. The youngster attracted bids from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). While RCB gave up early, KKR went deep in the bidding war, but he was eventually acquired by Mumbai Indians.

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