Boston [US], February 17 (ANI): Ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Mumbai Indians (MI) owner and Reliance Foundation Founder-Chairperson Nita Ambani on Monday opened up on how she scouted for new talent for the Mumbai Indians team and included Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah and Tilak Varma in the team.

The 10-team cash-rich league will kickstart 12 days after the ICC Champions Trophy final at March 9 and will be played across 12 venues, which includes 10 home venues of each franchise plus (second venue for RR) and Dharamsala (second venue for Punjab Kings).

The 'El-Clasico' of IPL, a clash between five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), is set to take place in the evening at Chepauk on March 23 which will be the opening clash of both the teams in the competition.

'In IPL, we all have a fixed budget, so every team can spend x amount of money, so we had to think about new ways of getting talent... So I remember scouting for talent, and I used to go to every Ranji Trophy match and my scouts and I would go to all these domestic cricket matches. And one day, our scouts took two young, lanky, thin boys to the camp. I was talking to them, and they said that for three years, they've eaten nothing but Maggi, Noodles because they've had no money. But in them, I saw the spirit, the passion and the hunger that they wanted to make it big,' Nita Ambani said during the keynote address at the Harvard India Conference on Indian Business, Policy & Culture.

'Those two brothers were Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya. In 2015, I bought Hardik Pandya at 10 thousand US dollars in the auction, and today, he's the proud captain of Mumbai Indians. The next year, our scouts got one young cricketer with an odd body language, and they said watch him bowl. We watched him he could just speak to the ball. That was our Bumrah and the rest is history. Last year, we launched Tilak Varma, and now he is a proud member of Team India. So I think Mumbai Indians is rightfully called the nursery of cricket in India,' Nita Ambani added.

Speaking about the performance in the IPL so far, Bumrah has taken 165 wickets in 133 matches in the IPL, with an average of 22.51 and an economy rate of 7.30, making him the second-highest wicket-taker for the team after Lasith Malinga. He has two five and four-wicket hauls in the league.

MI skipper Hardik Pandya faced challenges throughout IPL 2024, with fans expressing their discontent by booing him at various venues, including the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. After being traded from the Gujarat Titans and succeeding Rohit as captain, he struggled with his performance, scoring only 216 runs at a strike rate of 143 and taking 11 wickets with an economy rate of 10.75.

Tilak Varma has played so far 38 IPL matches in which the southpaw has mamaged to score 1156 runs at a strike rate of 146.33 and at an average of 39.86. His best score in the tournament is 84* and has scored six fifties in his cash-rich league career till now.

MI IPL 2025 Squad: Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma, Trent Boult (Rs. 12.50 crore), Naman Dhir (Rs. 5.25 crore), Robin Minz (Rs. 65 lakh), Karn Sharma (Rs. 50 lakh), Ryan Rickelton (Rs. 1 crore), Deepak Chahar (Rs. 9.25 crore), Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Will Jacks (Rs. 5.25 crore), Ashwani Kumar (Rs. 30 lakh), Mitchell Santner (Rs. 2 crore), Reece Topley (Rs. 75 lakh), Krishnan Shrijith (Rs. 30 lakh), Raj Angad Bawa (Rs. 30 lakh), Satyanarayana Raju (Rs. 30 lakh), Bevon Jacobs (Rs. 30 lakh), Arjun Tendulkar (Rs. 30 lakh), Lizaad Williams (Rs. 75 lakh), Vignesh Puthur (Rs. 30 lakh). (ANI)