One of the most enduring relationships between a franchise and a player in the IPL has ended. Five-time champions Mumbai Indians have released Kieron Pollard, their senior player, to end a 13-year playing career that began in 2010 when they signed Pollard for an undisclosed fee through a tie-breaker stalemate between four teams. While Pollard said he would call time as a player in the IPL, his relationship with Mumbai is not ending: he has joined them as batting coach and will play for MI Emirates, owned by the same group, in the ILT20 at the Emirates the united arab. .
#One family @KieronPollard55 pic.twitter.com/K5BVlTDeN0
– Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) November 15, 2022
Pollard is a small group of players who have represented just one franchise throughout their IPL career. Others on the list, with a break of at least 100 matches, are Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore from 2008), Sunil Narine (Kolkata Knight Riders from 2011), Jasprit Bumrah (Mumbai from 2013) and Lasith Malinga (who had two stays in Mumbai).
#One family @KieronPollard55 pic.twitter.com/K5BVlTDeN0
– Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) November 15, 2022
It was Pollard’s explosive batting, athletic fielding and cleverness with the ball during the Champions League T20 2009 that caught the collective attention of the IPL franchises. While he set his base price at USD 200,000 in the 2010 auction, four franchises – Mumbai, Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers and Knight Riders – placed the maximum bid of USD 750,000 for him. Pollard became the first of the two players in the IPL [Shane Bond was the second] will be signed via the silent draw rule, where franchises were required to list a price on a blank check to the highest bidder receiving the player’s services.
It was a remarkable turn of fortune for Pollard, the tall and well-built Trinidad & Tobago native who had been left “disappointed” just a year earlier when he went unsold at the 2009 auction despite setting a base price of only 60,000 USD. .
In a chat with ESPNcricinfo in 2010, a day after Mumbai paid him an estimated seven-figure sum, Pollard said his biggest challenge would be to “sustain what I’ve started as there would be expectations big ones from me – but cricket is a funny game, it can go either way; I’m just going to go out there and play my best.”
Pollard lived up to those words, becoming a talismanic figure in Mumbai. Pollard and former Australia opener Shane Watson are the only players with 3,000 runs and more than 50 wickets in the IPL. Pollard hit 223 sixes, the fifth highest in the tournament’s history, won the Man of the Match award on 14 occasions, including in the 2013 final when Mumbai beat the Super Kings to win the first of their five IPL crowns. Pollard walked into the Eden Gardens when Mumbai were 52 for 4 in the middle of their innings and scored an unbeaten 60 off 32 balls.
Before every auction, Pollard was an automatic retention for Mumbai, including in 2022, when he was the franchise’s fourth retained player at INR 6 crore (approx. USD 800,000). But if Pollard needed a reminder of the challenge of “maintaining” his form, it came in IPL 2022. In 11 matches, Pollard scored just 144 runs, and his average of 14.40 and strike rate of 107.46 were more the lowest in any IPL season. Things haven’t improved since then as Pollard underwent knee surgery during the English summer and then played in the CPL where he led the Trinbago Knight Riders who failed to make the last four for the first time.
As for Mumbai, their decision to offload Pollard came with the motive of going into the 2023 auction with a bigger bag. Mumbai are known for creating long-lasting bonds with their players, and Pollard’s move to the coaching staff was no surprise.
