J Arunkumar, the former Karnataka captain and coach, has been roped by Mumbai Indians as their assistant batting coach ahead of IPL 2023. Arunkumar joins his former team-mate
R Vinay Kumar, a talent scout, on the franchise’s support staff roster, that will be headed by
Mark Boucher; Arunkumar and Boucher were colleagues at Royal Challengers Bangalore during the inaugural IPL season in 2008.
Arunkumar will work in tandem with
Kieron Pollard, who was
announced as batting coach in November after he was released by the franchise ahead of the auction. Pollard had represented the franchise in 189 matches since first coming on board in 2009.
A veteran of 109 first-class matches, Arunkumar was until recently
head coach of the USA men’s national team for over two years. Prior to that, he was involved in the Indian domestic circuit with Puducherry and Karnataka. In the IPL, he’s previously
worked with Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) as batting coach in 2017.
Arunkumar achieved great success with Karnataka
During his tenure [Arunkumar and Mansur Ali Khan coached the team together], Karnataka won back-to-back Ranji Trophy titles in 2013-14 and 2014-15. They also won two Irani Cups and Vijay Hazare Trophy titles in the same seasons. His time coincided with the team establishing themselves as a dominant force in domestic cricket, with KL Rahul, Manish Pandey and Karun Nair all graduating to play for India.
Arunkumar also had an impressive career as a player with Karnataka, being part of two title wins as a player, in 1995-96 and 1997-98. He made 7208 first-class runs in 176 innings, with 20 centuries and 36 half-centuries.
The new support staff appointments followed the group’s overhaul of its existing coaching set-up after the acquisition of teams at the UAE’s ILT20 (MI Emirates) and the South African SA20 league (MI Cape Town).
Mahela Jayawardene, who was the head coach at Mumbai Indians since 2017, has been elevated to the global head of performance, and
Zaheer Khan, the director of cricket operations till last season, is now the global head of cricket development. They will both be involved with all three teams.
Jacob Oram roped in as MI Cape Town bowling coachIn another update,
Jacob Oram, the former New Zealand allrounder, has been appointed MI Cape Town’s bowling coach ahead of the inaugural SA20 season.
Oram, who played 33 Tests, 160 ODIs and 36 T20Is between 2001 and 2012, also played four seasons of the IPL, in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013, finishing up with Mumbai Indians. A coach after retirement, Oram’s most recent position was as the assistant coach of the New Zealand women’s team.
He now joins the MI Cape Town support staff team of Simon Katich (head coach), Hashim Amla (batting coach), James Pamment (fielding coach), and Robin Peterson (team manager).
