Mayank Markande

  • Nov 11, 1997 (25 years)
  • Bathinda, Punjab
  • RIGHT
  • Right Arm leg break
Player Batting Status
  M Inn NO Runs HS Avg SR 100 200 50 4s 6s
T20I 1 0 0 0 0 - - 0 0 0 0 0
IPL 30 11 8 48 18 16.0 114.29 0 0 0 5 1
Player Bowling Status
  M Inn B Runs Wkts BBI BBM Econ Avg SR 5W 10W
1 1 24 31 0 0/31 0/31 7.75 0.0 0.0 0 0
30 30 588 810 29 4/15 4/15 8.27 27.93 20.28 0 0
Biography

One of those true blue IPL products, Mayank Markande is a young leg-spinner, with a googly that's good enough to trick the best in the business. He started off as a medium pacer, but his coach on spotting his small frame and a good slower one from the back of his hand, convinced him to switch to leg-spin in his teens.

He made his List A and T20 debuts in the 2018 domestic season for Punjab as a 20-year-old and played a handful of matches. In what is a testimony to Mumbai Indians' scouting team, Markande was picked up from nowhere in the 2018 auction for 20 lakhs after he impressed the think tank in the pre-auction trials. He won over the captain's confidence as well in the nets and was thrown into the deep sea straightaway as Mumbai chose to field him in their starting eleven over bigger names.

In what would perhaps be the biggest moment in his life, Mayank trapped MS Dhoni LBW with a sharp googly which the senior pro didn't read to get his first IPL wicket. He followed it up with a four-fer against Sunrisers Hyderabad and vital wickets against most teams in the first half of the league - leading to him having the purple cap for a significant amount of time.

The word on the ground was quick to spread and he was named as a part of the India A squad in the quadrangular One-Day series, followed by a spot to play the Deodhar Trophy even before making his First Class debut. In his maiden Ranji season that followed, he emerged as Punjab's leading wicket-taker with 29 wickets. As he wrapped up the England Lions with an impressive fifer for India A early in 2019, he received the proof of his ever-rocketing stocks - a maiden call up for the national T20I side against the touring Australians, a selection which even by his own admission was an out of the blue surprise.

However, in the following season, a mix of injury and the rise of fellow leggie, Rahul Chahar, saw him go out of favour with the MI team think tank and he barely played a role in the side's journey to the title. Post the 2019 season, he was eventually swapped to Delhi Capitals in exchange for West Indian all-rounder, Sherfane Rutherford. Consequently, Markhande got released by Delhi and he was signed by Rajasthan at the 2020 auctions.

At a time when wrist spinners are the new in-thing in the world of cricket and with age on his side, Markande could just be the next big thing to come out of India's rich spin-stables.

Written by - Vineet Anantharaman