In the encounter against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Wankhede Stadium, the Mumbai Indians gave Ashwani Kumar, a promising left-arm pacer from Punjab, his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut. With his first IPL wicket on the opening ball of his career, the 23-year-old made an incredible start. In the 2025 IPL mega auction, the five-time winners paid INR 30 lakh for his services. Despite being a member of the Punjab Kings team the previous season, he did not play in any games.
Ashwani Kumar started his domestic cricket career during the 2022 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy by playing for Punjab cricket. The young cricketer has received limited opportunities to play in T20 matches because he has taken just three wickets in four games averaging 8.50 runs per over. Punjab team selected him to participate in two First-Class matches and four List A matches.
The Sher-e-Punjab T20 tournament brought Ashwani to public recognition because of his noteworthy play. His performances at BLV Blasters as a member of the BLV Blasters led IPL scouts to notice him after achieving 4 wickets at 36 runs against his opponents.
He made an impression in his first-ever IPL delivery in his debut match against KKR, dismissing KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane. Tilak Varma made a juggling catch after the right-hander, who was attempting to drive a full and wide delivery, cut the ball at deep backward point. Interestingly, he set up a chance to get rid of Venkatesh Iyer in the same over, but Mitchell Santner dropped the catch.
He had earlier removed Quinton de Kock from Deepak Chahar’s bowling with a spectacular catch. Ashwani leaped and snatched the ball with both hands as De Kock tried to clear mid-off. The pcer put KKR farther behind the curve by dismissing Rinku Singh and Manish Pandey in the same over after he was summoned in for his second over. In his third over, he came back to dismiss Andre Russell after the KKR all-rounder was unable to hit a length ball that shook his stumps.
Ashwani is the most recent addition to Mumbai’s longstanding practice of supporting up-and-coming domestic athletes. They have also given Vignesh Puthur of Kerala and Satyanarayana Raju of Andhra a chance this season.
