Nita M Ambani: “Want to continue the tradition of developing young players for Indian cricket”

 Nita M Ambani, owner of the Mumbai Indians, spoke about Mumbai Indians acquiring a lot of young players at the IPL auction in Jeddah on Monday. Mrs Ambani alluded to MI historically producing a lot of players who have gone on to represent India and thanked the MI Paltan for their passionate support with a message in Marathi.

Wanted to build a team around our strong retained core at the auction

“Mega auction mhanje, navin team, navin shurvat, pan toch Mumbai Indians cha utsah (Mega auction means new team, new start but the same Mumbai Indians enthusiasm). I am happy to welcome some new faces and to have some old ones back with us – Trent Boult, Naman Dhir, Allah Ghazanfar, Ryan Rickelton, Deepak Chahar, Robin Minz, Karn Sharma, Will Jacks, Mitchell Santner, Reece Topley, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Angad Bawa, Shrijith Krishnan, Satyanarayana Raju, Bevon-John Jacobs, Arjun Tendulkar, Lizaad Williams and Vignesh Puthur. We have retained a strong core with Hardik, Jasprit, Rohit, Surya and Tilak and the opportunity at the auction was to see how we can build a team around them.”

Take a lot of pride and satisfaction in nurturing young talent

“At MI, we take a lot of pride and satisfaction in scouting and nurturing many young talents who have gone on to play for the Indian team. From Jasprit, Hardik, Tilak, Ramandeep Singh, and now we have a pool of upcoming youngsters and an opportunity to develop the next set of talent - Naman Dhir, Robin Minz, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Angad Bawa and Shrijith Krishnan. I am very excited to welcome them to the Mumbai Indians #OneFamily and we want to continue this tradition of developing young players for Indian cricket.”

Paltan’s support is MI’s biggest strength

“Paltan, he apli team aahe. Mumbai chi team aahe. Tumcha support MI chi sarvat mothi takad aahe. Paltan, ekatra khelu ani jinku aplya One Family sathi (Paltan, this is our team, Mumbai’s team. Your support is the biggest strength of Mumbai Indians. Paltan, Let’s see our #OneFamily play and win together).”