IPL 2025 | Who is Rahu Sharma - the MI net bowler who replaced Vignesh Puthur for rest of the season

Mumbai Indians have announced Raghu Sharma as the replacement for spinner Vignesh Puthur for the rest of the IPL 2025 season. This comes after Puthur, who earlier in the season made a memorable debut for MI, developed stress reactions in his shins. The news was confirmed by the franchise in a release.

"Vignesh will continue to be with the team to focus on his recovery and rehabilitation with the Mumbai Indians medical and S&C team," the franchise said in a statement.

In the six five matches he played in IPL 2025, Puthur took six wickets including a three-wicket haul on the debut against Chennai Super Kings.

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Raghu has been a net bowler for Mumbai Indians and was picked for his base price of INR 30 lakh.

"He has played 11 First-Class, nine List A and three T20s for Punjab and Pondicherry. He has picked five five-wicket hauls and three 10-wicket hauls in his First-Class career so far. The 32-year-old also had a good outing in the 2024-25 Vijay Hazare Trophy for Punjab, picking 14 wickets in eight matches," read the franchise statement.

Mumbai Indians have had a season of two halves. After winning only one game in the first five matches, they have won all of their last five matches and stand third on the 10-team points table with six wins and four losses.

They have four more matches left in the season and if they manage to win at least two of them, the five-time champions will have more than better chance to making it to the playoffs.

Their chances have also been boosted by Rohit Sharma's return to form along with on fire Suryakumar Yadav. With evergreen Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult in their element, Hardik Pandya's team look formidable and a title contender once again.