MLC 2023: MI New York Celebrates Franchise’s Incredible Bonding With Kieron Pollard – News18

Kieron Pollard’s name has been synonymous with the Mumbai Indians franchise. The West Indian all-rounder had been a major contributor and one of the centre stones of the franchise for more than a decade in IPL. So, when the franchise moved out of IPL to take part in other leagues around the globe, Pollard remained a key member in the scheme of things. Pollard won his 8th title with the MI franchise with an inaugural title triumph in Major League Cricket where he was the captain of MI New York. The team defeated the Seattle Orcas in the MLC finals to become the inaugural champions. MINY posted a picture of Pollard along with his wife and kids posing with the MLC trophy.

“???????. 8 for the Pollard family in Blue & Gold,” read the caption posted with the photo.

Pollard was part of Mumbai Indians’ 5-time Indian Premier League title-winning side, while he also played a crucial role in the team’s 2 Champions League titles that the team won in 2011 and 2013.

Pollard is one of the legends of the T20 format across the world and is the 3rd-highest run scorer in the T20 format. While he is the most experienced player in the shortest format with 625 T20 matches. The explosive batter has over 12000 runs in the format just behind Chris Gayle and Shoaib Malik.

This year Pollard announced his retirement from the IPL and took up the role of Mumbai’s batting coach. The all-rounder still plays across other leagues and when the opportunity came, he stepped up and took MI New York’s captaincy in the inaugural season of MLC. The team finished the group stage in the 4th position with just 2 victories under their belt.

Pollard was sidelined with an injury in the playoffs, but MINY took off on a dream run in the playoff matches and captured the title in the finals. Nicholas Pooran took over as the captain in the playoffs and showed why he is a feared batter when he played a knock for the ages in the finals. Pooran scored 137 not out in just 55 balls and chased down the target of 184 with 4 overs left.