Who is Milind Kumar? The American batter who can fetch a great price in upcoming IPL mega auction

32-year-old Milind Kumar who was born in India and previously played domestic cricket for both Delhi and Sikkim, is now shining for USA in the ICC Cricket World Cup League. On Tuesday, Milind played an unbeaten knock of 155 against UAE to carry USA to 339/4 in 50 overs, their biggest-ever total in international cricket. He was given great company by Saiteja Mukkamalla who also scored a century and formed a 191-run stand with him.

With his fantastic inning of 155, Milind became the American batter with the second-highest individual score in international cricket, only behind Jaskaran Malhotra’s 173.

Milind made his domestic debut back in 2010 for Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He then made his first-class debut the next year, playing in a match for Delhi against Haryana in the Ranji Trophy. He played a total of 46 first-class matches in his career and scored 2988 runs and had the highest score of 261.

Milind has played in IPL for 2 different franchises

He was bought by Indian Premier League franchise Delhi Daredevils (DD) in 2014 for INR 10 Lakh. He was then bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL12 (2019) at his base price of INR 20 Lakh.

Ahead of the 2018/19 Ranji Trophy, Milind was drafted from Delhi to Sikkim and finished the tournament as the top-scorer with 1331 runs. In December 2018, he was bought by the RCB again in the player auction for the 2019 IPL season. However, he would get released by the franchise ahead of the 2020 IPL auction.

He left the Sikkim team ahead of the 2019/20 Ranji Trophy and joined Tripura. He played his final first-class match in 2020 for Tripura in a match against Assam. Then, he would change his nationality and join the USA team in order to get a chance to play competitive cricket for the national side and this is where he really shined.

Milind came into the spotlight in Major League Cricket

First, Milind went on to have a decent Major League Cricket (MLC) campaign with the Texas Super Kings which saw him get picked for the national side. Then, he went on to become a mainstay in the USA one-day team because of his great performances. He may have only played 8 ODIs for the national team, but has so far made a great impression, scoring 354 runs which includes a century and 2 half-centuries.

He has also played a total of 6 T20I matches for USA but has failed to impress in the format so far, scoring only 50 runs.

These great performances can see Milind make a return to the IPL after 4 seasons as many franchises may be interested in a hard-hitter like him and he can even turn out to be quite a valuable asset to any IPL team. It will be interesting to see which team will make a move for him in the upcoming IPL mega auction.

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