5 Players who never played a game for Mumbai Indians after getting a bid in IPL Auctions

After 12 seasons since its inception in 2008, the Indian Premier League stands as one of the most cash-rich and the toughest cricketing leagues around the globe. Every year, eight teams take the field to battle it out for the coveted IPL trophy. Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings remain the most successful teams of the tournament.

The reason for their consistency has been faith in the core team. Moreover, Mumbai Indians also have a strong talent-scouting team, which has brought up the likes of Rahul Chahar, Panda brothers, Mayank Markande – just to name a few. In such a star-studded team, it is always hard to find a place in the playing XI.

This has been the case with many players. Even some known foreign faces have failed to get a chance to represent the franchise. As we would see, these talented players were valuable additions to other teams. On this note, let us take a look at few such players, who could never play for MI, despite being in the squad.

1. Josh Hazlewood

Josh Hazlewood was bought by Mumbai Indians for IPL 2014 for a sum of Rs 50 lakhs. However, the Australian didn’t get a single game since he wasn’t a big face at that time. His rise to fame was in December that year when he returned with impressive figures against India down under.

After warming the bench in 2014, Hazlewood was again retained by the franchise for IPL 2015. But destiny did not want him to play this time as well. To manage his workload for heavy international fixtures ahead, the pacer pulled out of the competition.

He was replaced with Colin Munro, who did not play any game either. The fact of the matter is that Hazlewood is yet to make his IPL debut, even after years of excellent performances for his national team.