West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran was the first wicketkeeper-batsman to be picked up in the IPL auction this year, after six players – Jonny Bairstow, Dinesh Chandimal, Johnson Charles, Ben Dunk, Andre Fletcher – with the same specialisation remained unsold.
Mumbai Indians owner Nita Ambani was pleased with her first buy of the day as she acquired the relatively unknown player at his base price of Rs 30 lakh.
Pooran made his T20 international debut only in September last year and has played only three games. However, the 21-year-old has been the vice-captain of his under-19 team and has also been playing the Caribbean Premier League and Bangladesh Premier League.
While he has a career strike rate of 143.29, he scored runs at a strike rate of 149.09 in 2016.
With Parthiv Patel’s meek performance with the bat in the shorter format, Nicholas Pooran might be made the number one wicketkeeper batsman for the Mumbai Indians.
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