Mumbai Indians have been dealt a major blow as top-order batsman Lendl Simmons has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League owing to injury. However, in what might be seen as good news for the Mumbai Indians fans, New Zealand opener Martin Guptill has been named as the replacement for the West Indian batsman.
Simmons had missed out on the major part of the ICC World T20 due to a back injury. But, the 31-year-old batsman from Trinidad had featured in the semi-final of the World T20 and played a match-winning knock against hosts India and went on to win the World T20 title.
Simmons’ record in the IPL is one of the best as he has scored 942 runs in 22 matches at an impressive average of 47.10 scoring 1 hundred and 9 fifties. Mumbai will feel hard done by as his record in the IPL has been nothing short of impressive.
However, the arrival of New Zealand's dashing opener Guptill will give a huge boost to the defending champions as the 29-year-old Kiwi has been in supreme form in limited-overs cricket in the last couple of years.
Being in such good form, it must have been a surprise to most cricket fans when Guptill went unsold in the IPL Auction that had been held during the month of February.
Guptill's record in T20s is nothing short of commendable as he scored 4684 runs in 150 innings at an average of 35.48 and at a strike rate of 128.54. He has 2 hundreds and 30 fifties to his name. However, on observing his form in T20s since 2015, Guptill has 861 runs in just 24 innings at an average of 37.43 and an outstanding strike rate of 144.46.
With Guptill at the top of the order along with Rohit Sharma, the fans of Mumbai Indians will be quite thrilled to watch how their batting line-up gets going. Maybe the presence of the Kiwi batsman is just what the Mumbai franchise needs to defend their IPL title.
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