After a disastrous IPL-15 campaign, the Mumbai Indians are all set to start their preparations in earnest for the next edition, with a three-week exposure tour of England in July for their uncapped Indian players.
Apart from enjoying training at various state-of-the-art facilities, the Indian youngsters of MI will be playing at least 10 T20 games against top club sides across multiple counties.
"NT Tilak Varma, Kumar Kartikeya, Ramandeep Singh, Hrithik Shokeen are some of the players who will get exposure playing against top T20 club sides in trying conditions.
Arjun Tendulkar to be part of the tour
"Arjun Tendulkar, who is also in UK and South African younngster Dewald Brevis are also likely to join the touring party," an IPL insider privy to the development told PTI on condition of anonymity.
The MI support staff headed by chief coach Mahela Jayawardene will be in England to oversee the progress of the Indian players.
"Look, the Indian domestic season has come to an end. While the top players like skipper Rohit Sharma, premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah will be now on the road with the national team, our international stars will also be busy with their respective commitments," the source indicated.
Focus on young players
"The ones who need to be monitored are our younger crop of players as they won't be having any match practice for three and half months before the next domestic season starts.
"So effectively, we can't call it a pre-season trip as IPL is still nine months away. But it is trying to monitor the progress of our core group of youngsters going forward," he added.
For this trip though, MI doesn't need any BCCI permission unless the team is playing exhibition games against other franchises or overseas T20 sides.
"This trip isn't a commercial one where there will be tickets sold or the match will be broadcast on a particular channel or streamed on some app. Since the trip isn't a revenue generator, we don't need to apply for any permission from BCCI," he informed.
"We are only taking those players to UK who are not associated with any national team activities or have been summoned for any of the BCCI conducted camps or playing in any league (like TNPL)."
NT Tilak Varma, Kumar Kartikeya, Hrithik Shokeen, Mayank Markande, Rahul Buddhi, Ramandeep Singh, Anmolpreet Singh, Basil Thampi, Murugan Ashwin, Aryan Juyal, Akash Medhwal, Arshad Khan, Arjun Tendulkar, Dewal Brevis (overseas)
