Just a day after confirming the trade of Shardul Thakur from Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) have further bolstered their bowling attack by signing another player from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the next Indian Premier League (IPL 2026) season.
Legspinner Mayank Markande, who was secured by KKR for his base price of INR 30 lakhs at the mega-auction last time around, have now been traded to MI for an all-cash deal. The 28-year-old did not get any game time last season with KKR and was forced to warm the bench with Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy being the preferred spinners in the side.
Notably, Markande is MI’s third trade signing this season, with Shardul Thakur and Sherfane Rutherford (from GT) being the other two names. Thakur was acquired for INR 2 crores while the West Indies all-rounder joined at INR 2.6 crores. MI so far have done good business acquiring three players for under 5 crores via trade.
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For the unversed, Markande had made his IPL debut with MI back in 2018, where he impressed, taking 15 wickets in 14 games including a best figure of 4/23. Following the stellar show, he even went on to earn his India debut in T20Is during a bilateral home series against Australia in 2019.
However, he could represent India in just a solitary game before he fell down the pecking order. Subsequently, he didn’t get enough game time in the cash-rich league. In the next five years, even after joining two different teams, Markande could play only 23 games.
Speaking about his overall IPL numbers, Mayank Markande has played 37 games and taken 37 scalps, at an average of 28.89 and a strike rate of 19.4 including two four-fers.
Mayank will now join two more leggies at the MI camp – Vignesh Puthur and Karn Sharma, which will increase the competition in the side and give the Hardik Pandya-led side more options in the spin department.
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