Nita Ambani used to attend Ranji Trophy matches while scouting for talent.
Mumbai Indians (MI) owner Nita Ambani recently revealed the backstory of how the five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions acquired the Pandya brothers—Hardik and Krunal Pandya. She recalled the moment when she met Hardik and Krunal during a preparatory camp over a decade ago. Nita Ambani used to attend Ranji Trophy matches while scouting for talent and it was during one of those training camps that she met the Pandya brothers.
“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,” Nita said.
She also revealed that the two of them had no money and survived only on just noodles for three years.
“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. 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,” she added.
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Hardik Pandya joined Mumbai Indians in 2015 and played for them till the 2021 season. He was then snapped up by Gujarat Titans (GT) ahead of the 2022 IPL season and guided the newly-formed franchise to their maiden IPL title in their debut season that year. After spending a couple of years at GT, Hardik returned to MI before the 2024 season and was named their skipper. Mumbai Indians, however, endured a disappointing 10th-place finish in IPL 2024.
Krunal, on the other hand, moved to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in 2022 after spending six seasons at Mumbai Indians. He played for LSG between 2022 and 2024 and was snapped by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for Rs 5.75 crore at the IPL 2025 mega auction in Saudi Arabia last year.
Pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been a mainstay at Mumbai Indians ever since his IPL debut in 2013. He has taken 165 wickets from 133 IPL matches for Mumbai Indians to date and is known for his lethal unplayable deliveries. Nita Ambani revealed how the 31-year-old would speak to the ball.
“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,” she reminisced.
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