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Mumbai Indians eye up return for two former players in busy trade window; contact KKR, wait for SRH's response: Report
Mumbai Indians are on the look-out for help in their Indian spin-bowling department, and are turning to former players for reinforcement.
The IPL off-season has seen plenty of trade movement in recent days, with the swap of Sanju Samson and Ravindra Jadeja between Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings taking the headlines. However, there have been a range of smaller moves that each team is looking to complete to make small improvements to their roster.
After adding Shardul Thakur as some seam depth in exchange for Arjun Tendulkar, Mumbai Indians are reportedly set for another move. The five-time champions of the IPL are in might need of some domestic spin bowling support to bolster their ranks, and they have gone back to a player who earned his breakthrough at the Wankhede Stadium in leg-spinner Mayank Markande.
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MI are set to offer Kolkata Knight Riders an all-cash deal to bring Markande on board, as per a Times of India report, after the 28-year old didn’t represent the Eden Gardens franchise in a single game in 2025. The negotiations are reportedly reaching the final stages, with an announcement expected soon to mark Markande’s return to the MI setup.
Markande made his breakthrough with MI in 2018, taking 15 wickets that season. However, despite earning his sole international cap early in 2019, things haven’t gone quite to plan for the leg-spinner. After 14 matches in that debut season, Markande has only played 23 more matches. This did include a couple of relatively impressive seasons for SRH in 2023 and 2024, but Markande’s eyes will be on improving his stocks further.
Rahul Chahar also on MI's radar
The report also suggests MI have an eye on another former leg-spinner in Rahul Chahar, who only earned one game with SRH in 2025 but was a key member of MI’s 2020 IPL-winning team. However, at 3.2 crore, he is a significantly more expensive option than Markande. It remains unclear if MI wish to push their deal with SRH further forward, or if Markande is the option they will end up opting for before trying their luck at the auction table.
He joins an Indian spin bowling core of Vignesh Puthur and Karn Sharma in MI, alongside Mitchell Santner and Will Jacks as the overseas spin options. KKR, meanwhile, will likely look elsewhere to find back-up options for Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine, as they stand to the cash-only offer from MI.
