Raghu Sharma was signed by the Mumbai Indians (MI) to replace Vignesh Puthur, who was injured. Due to an undisclosed injury, the left-arm wrist-spinner was unable to play in the rest of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025).

In MI’s season-opening game against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk, the 24-year-old Puthur made his IPL debut. After the hosts got off to a fast start inside the powerplay, he entered as the Impact Player and took the wickets of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, and Deepak Hooda to give MI a chance to defend a target of 156 runs.

Puthur took six wickets at an average of 18.17 and a strike rate of 12 in five games for MI this season. He had a respectable economy rate of 9.08. In MI’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 23, he bowled just one over. Puthur then missed the most recent match between the five-time champions and the Lucknow Super Giants.

Raghu Sharma is a right-arm leg-spin bowler who was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, on March 11, 1993.

In domestic cricket, he has represented Puducherry and Punjab. Sharma has taken 57 wickets at an average of 19.59 in 11 first-class games, with his best bowling stats being 7/56. He has taken 14 wickets in nine games in List A cricket, with his best stats being 4/37. He has also taken as many wickets in three Twenty20 matches.

Sharma will be playing in the IPL for the first time. He joins the Hardik Pandya-led team from the RAPP (Registered Available Player Pool) list for his base salary of INR 30 lakhs.

MI wants to keep winning against the Rajasthan Royals.

Following a poor start to the season, MI has quickly climbed the standings and is now just behind Punjab Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru. They have won five straight games.

On Thursday, May 1, Mumbai will play the revitalised Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium. In the last game against Gujarat Titans, 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s aggressive century helped the first-ever champions snap a five-match losing streak.