Mumbai Indians players set to go for a UK tour this summer

 Image by IPL

Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians is preparing to perform better in the next season of the campaign after an unsuccessful stint this year. Many ‘uncapped’ team members are gearing up for an ‘exposure tour of England’ which is going to kickstart in July.

The tour will include training sessions with the availability of sophisticated amenities and will give the young players an opportunity to play T20 matches against some of the best clubs from different countries.

Former Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene, who is the Head Coach for Mumbai Indians, will join the support staff for the team in England to overlook the progress of the players.

An IPL insider informed the Press Trust of India (PTI) in an interview, “NT Tilak Varma, Kumar Kartikeya, Ramandeep Singh, Hrithik Shokeen are some of the players who will get exposure playing against top T20 club sides in trying conditions.”

“Arjun Tendulkar, who is also in UK and South African youngster Dewald Brevis are also likely to join the touring party,” they added.

The source also told PTI that since the domestic cricket season for India has finished, some of the top Indian national team cricketers will be engaged in their commitments to play for the team in international matches.

They informed, “The ones who need to be monitored are our younger crop of players as they won’t be having any match practice for three and half months before the next domestic season starts.”

“So effectively, we can’t call it a pre-season trip as IPL is still nine months away. But it is trying to monitor the progress of our core group of youngsters going forward,” he added.

For this trip though, MI doesn’t need any BCCI permission unless the team is playing exhibition games against other franchises or overseas T20 sides.”

“This trip isn’t a commercial one where there will be tickets sold or the match will be broadcast on a particular channel or streamed on some app. Since the trip isn’t a revenue generator, we don’t need to apply for any permission from BCCI,” they said.

“We are only taking those players to UK who are not associated with any national team activities or have been summoned for any of the BCCI conducted camps or playing in any league (like TNPL).”

Additionally, the source also asserted that the trip is only meant for cricketers who are not playing for the national team or in a league. It will also not include those who have been asked to be a part of cricket camps arranged by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Players that are likely to go for the UK tour include NT Tilak Varma, Kumar Kartikeya, Hrithik Shokeen, Mayank Markande, Rahul Buddhi, Ramandeep Singh, Anmolpreet Singh, Basil Thampi, Murugan Ashwin, Aryan Juyal, Akash Medhwal, Arshad Khan, Arjun Tendulkar and Dewal Brevis (who is the only overseas player said to join others for the tour).