Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians on Friday named Abhishek Porel and Sandeep Warrier as replacements for injured duo Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah respectively for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season.
Porel was signed after the franchise had a week-long preparatory camp in New Delhi, which also included trial matches. Porel, a wicketkeeper-batter, has played 16 First-Class matches in addition to 3 List A and as many T20s for Bengal.
He has 695 runs to his name in domestic cricket, coming at an average of 30.21, and has affected 58 catches and 8 stumpings in first-class cricket. Porel also notched half-centuries in the semi-final and final of the Ranji Trophy earlier this year. He will join the Capitals at INR 20 lakhs.
Porel was drafted into the Capitals side as Pant, the regular skipper, is still recovering from injuries sustained in a serious car accident in December 2022. Ahead of their first game of the season against Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow, Delhi now have four wicket-keeping options in Porel, Sarfaraz Khan, Manish Pandey and Phil Salt.
On the other hand, Warrier, who debuted for India in 2021, will come in for Bumrah, who is unavailable due to back injury which has kept him out of action since September last year.
Warrier, the right-arm pacer, is an experienced player in the domestic circuit having played over 200 games with 62 of them coming from 68 games in the T20 format. Overall, he has taken 362 wickets in his career so far across all three formats.
Warrier will join the Mumbai squad ahead of the five-time champions' first game of IPL 2023 against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday at INR 50 lakh.
