Naman Dhir is making his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians today (March 24) against Gujarat Titans. Here is all you need to know about the 24-year-old hard-hitting batter from Punjab.

Who is Naman Dhir?

In their fist game of IPL 2024, Mumbai Indians handed a debut to the young Naman Dhir from Punjab. The 24-year-old right-hand batter made his first-class debut in the 2022-23 Ranji Trophy season and his T20 debut in the last Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT), where he was part of Punjab’s winning squad.

Mumbai Indians’ official website describes Dhir as an “unexplored cricket gem” and a “certified finisher”. In the four SMAT games he played for Punjab last season (his only four T20s at the recognised, senior level), Dhir batted at No.3 on each occasion, but was not able to get a big score in.

Naman Dhir’s domestic record

His T20 record reads 39 runs at an average of 9.75. However, he made waves in the Sher-E-Punjab T20 Cup – a tournament without full T20 status – last year, where he was the second-highest run-scorer with 466 runs from 12 games at an average and strike rate of 42.36 and 192.56 respectively. He was the only batter to score two hundreds in that tournament and his 30 sixes across the competition were unmatched as well.

Naman Dhir makes his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians today.

He has a T20 batting average of 9.75.

Last year, he smashed a 56-ball 127 in the Sher-e-Punjab T20 Cup. #IPL2024 #GTvsMI pic.twitter.com/E5V4honHtQ

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) March 24, 2024

In first-class cricket, Dhir averages 30.21 from 14 games with two centuries to his name so far, against Saurashtra and Gujarat.

Most recently, Dhir was part of the Reliance 1 squad in the DY Patil T20 Cup, the tournament where Hardik Pandya, his skipper at MI, made his comeback from injury. From four games, Dhir scored 109 runs at a strike rate of 149.32, including one half-century.

Dhir can also turn his arm over, bowling off-breaks. While he is yet to bowl in recognised T20s, he has bowled in first-class cricket and has taken eight wickets at an average of 27.25.

MI’s trend of launching young batters

With Suryakumar Yadav not being available due to injury, Mumbai needed a batter to fill in for him. Dhir’s hitting abilities have handed him a debut.

Last year, MI gave a debut to Nehal Wadhera, his teammate from Punjab, who ended up scoring 241 runs at an average of 26.8 and a strike rate of 145.2.

In the year before that, Tilak Varma made his debut for MI and has since then made his way into the Indian team as well.

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.