Who is Luke Wood? All you need to know about England pacer who replaced Jason Behrendorff in MI squad for IPL 2024

Luke Wood will don the Mumbai Indians jersey for Rs. 50 lakhs in the IPL 2024.

Ahead of the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season, five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) suffered a big blow as their left-arm pacer Jason Behrendorff fractured his leg and got ruled out of the entire IPL 2024.

Jason Behrendorff, who picked 14 wickets in the last IPL season for MI, suffered a fracture to his left fibula while practicing at the WACA, Perth last week. He got hit on his leg while batting and while doing so, he suffered that injury. On Monday, March 18, 2024, MI announced Behrendorff’s replacement and roped in England left-arm fast bowler Luke Wood at his base price of Rs. 50 lakhs, who went unsold at the IPL 2024 auction.

As the five-time champions gear up for their IPL 2024 season opener against last year’s runners-up Gujarat Titans (GT) on March 24 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the addition of young left-arm pacer Luke Wood will help Hardik Pandya’s MI to have depth and versatility to their bowling department, along with deadly pacers such as Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, and Romario Shepherd.

Who is Mumbai Indians’ new recruit Luke Wood?

The 28-year-old Luke Wood is a left-arm fast bowler with ability to swing the ball into right-handed batters. Wood made his ODI debut for England in November 2022 against Australia at Adelaide, where he went wicketless in his 10-over spell. He is yet to pick a wicket in 50-over cricket. Wood made his T20I debut for England against Pakistan in September 2022 and has so far played five T20Is for his country picking up eight scalps.

The English bowler is an active participant in various franchise leagues around the globe. He has so far played in The Hundred, Big Bash League (BBL), Pakistan Super League (PSL), Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), Abu Dhabi T10, ILT20.

In BBL, Wood has played 14 games and picked up 20 wickets with an economy of 8.86 till now. So far, the English pacer has featured in four BPL games, where he has picked six wickets at an economy of 7.48.

Till now, the 28-year-old has been part of 12 PSL games and has 13 scalps to his name at an economy of 8.50. While, Wood has 19 scalps in 21 games in the 100-ball tournament. The left-arm seamer has overall taken 147 wickets in 140 T20 games, which includes eight wickets for England in five games.

He will now gear up for his maiden stint in the IPL with five-time champions, Mumbai Indians.

MI updated IPL 2024 squad:

Hardik Pandya (c), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Dewald Brevis, Tim David, N Tilak Varma, Arjun Tendulkar, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal, Nehal Wadhera, Shams Mulani, Vishnu Vinod, Piyush Chawla, Luke Wood, Romario Shepherd, Gerald Coetzee, Dilshan Madushanka, Shreyas Gopal, Nuwan Thushara, Anshul Kamboj, Naman Dhir, Mohammad Nabi, Shivalik Sharma.

Also Read: [Watch] Rohit Sharma hits MI nets for the first time after being removed as captain ahead of IPL 2024

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