Follow UsSouth Africa’s spin-bowling all-rounder JP Duminy has recalled feeling overawed and nervous when he made his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut for Mumbai Indians (MI) back in 2009. Sharing the dressing room with cricketing icons like Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, and Zaheer Khan left him in complete awe.
MI endured a tough season that year, finishing second from the bottom of the table, but Duminy stood out in his maiden campaign. The left-hander scored 372 runs at an impressive average of 41.33 and a strike rate of 114.5, finishing as Mumbai’s leading run-getter. With the ball, his off-spin proved handy too, as he picked up four wickets at a miserly economy rate of 5.31.
“I remember like, this was so nerve-racking. I walked in and there was Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Jayasuriya. I am a 24-year-old lighty and I was saying ‘hello, hello’. It was so intimidating. I said, ‘hi, hi, hi’ and went straight to the back of the bus. Now obviously, you have the high price tag as well expectation. We won the game, and I didn’t particularly perform well. The season was okay. The team didn’t do particularly well, but I thought I did relatively okay. The highest run-scorer for our team,” Duminy said on the Biggest Man in Cricket podcast.
“If I think back to actually being in my first IPL, which was the 2009 version in South Africa, we had just finished a South African series against Australia. The IPL started the next day after the last ODI. So, the last ODI was in Johannesburg, the next day in Cape Town was the first match, our opening game. I flew that morning, landed, and went straight to the hotel where the Mumbai Indians were staying. I actually didn’t even make it to the team meeting. I walked straight onto the bus.”
Duminy went on to represent MI, Deccan Chargers, and Delhi Capitals over the course of his IPL career. In total, he scored 2,029 runs at an outstanding average of 39.78 and a strike rate of 124, while also contributing with the ball, bagging 23 wickets at an economy of 7.4. The all-rounder last featured in the IPL in 2018.