Nita Ambani reveals how MI’s dressing room mended bond between Harbhajan and Symonds

At the prestigious Harvard India Conference Reliance Foundation Chairperson Nita Ambani shared a candid account of one of crickets most memorable moments the infamous Monkey Gate scandal that unfolded during the 2008 Sydney Test In her address Ambani offered a behindthescenes glimpse into how two of cricketrsquos fiercest rivals Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh and Australian player Andrew Symonds eventually overcame their differences leading to an unexpected but powerful partnership on the fieldRecalling a pivotal bonding session Ambani revealed how both Harbhajan and Symonds were brought together as part of the Mumbai Indians squad The session aimed at fostering camaraderie and understanding among teammates played a crucial role in mending their strained relationship ldquoWe had Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds playing for us at Mumbai Indians in that bonding session we had all of them together and they sat and cleared out differences and not only they played together but we won our 1st championship with Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds she saidAmbani also opened up on how she scouted for new talent for the Mumbai Indians team and included Hardik Pandya Krunal Pandya Jasprit Bumrah and Tilak Varma in the teamThe 10team cashrich league will kickstart 12 days after the ICC Champions Trophy final at March 9 and will be played across 12 venues which includes 10 home venues of each franchise plus second venue for RR and Dharamsala second venue for Punjab KingsThe ElClasico of IPL a clash between fivetime champions Mumbai Indians MI and Chennai Super Kings CSK is set to take place in the evening at Chepauk on March 23 which will be the opening clash of both the teams in the competitionIn IPL we all have a fixed budget so every team can spend x amount of money so we had to think about new ways of getting talent So I remember scouting for talent and I used to go to every Ranji Trophy match and my scouts and I would go to all these domestic cricket matches And one day our scouts took two young lanky thin boys to the camp I was talking to them and they said that for three years theyve eaten nothing but Maggi Noodles because theyve had no money But in them I saw the spirit the passion and the hunger that they wanted to make it big Nita Ambani said during the keynote address at the Harvard India Conference on Indian Business Policy amp CultureThose two brothers were Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya In 2015 I bought Hardik Pandya at 10 thousand US dollars in the auction and today hes the proud captain of Mumbai Indians The next year our scouts got one young cricketer with an odd body language and they said watch him bowl We watched him he could just speak to the ball That was our Bumrah and the rest is history Last year we launched Tilak Varma and now he is a proud member of Team India So I think Mumbai Indians is rightfully called the nursery of cricket in India Nita Ambani addedSpeaking about the performance in the IPL so far Bumrah has taken 165 wickets in 133 matches in the IPL with an average of 2251 and an economy rate of 730 making him the secondhighest wickettaker for the team after Lasith Malinga He has two five and fourwicket hauls in the league