WATCH: MI youngster Nehal Wadhera walks in Mumbai airport wearing batting pads

Nehal Wadhera, a budding star for the Mumbai Indians (MI), was spotted arriving at the Mumbai airport wearing batting pads. Wadhera has had an excellent campaign for the franchise so far this season and has caught the attention of the cricket fraternity with his impressive striking.

Meanwhile, the 22-year-old is now making the rounds on social media not for his performance, but for his bizarre public appearance.

The Mumbai-based franchise shared a video on its official Twitter handle, which showed Wadhera walking with his teammates inside the airport with his pads on. The five-time champs, however, did not leave fans guessing as they revealed the reason in the caption. It was a punishment for being late to batters meeting.

“#MumbaiIndians youngster #NehalWadhera turned all heads at Mumbai airport with his punishment #OOTD. He was captured with his pads on instead of traditional jumpsuit. According to our sources, #Nehal regrets being late for batters meeting,” the franchise captioned the video.

Watch the video below: 

#MumbaiIndians youngster #NehalWadhera turned all heads at Mumbai airport with his punishment #OOTD. He was captured with his pads on instead of traditional jumpsuit. According to our sources, #Nehal regrets being late for batters meeting. pic.twitter.com/vCzenvIWzC

— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) May 13, 2023

One of the finds of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, Wadhera has been a consistent performer for his team with valuable contributions. The youngster has scored 198 runs in 10 matches, including two half-centuries in matches against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

MI aim to secure a playoff berth by winning back-to-back matches

After a poor start to the season, MI bounced back well with some incredible 200+ chases and are currently third on the points table with 14 points from 12 games. Although their bowling line-up doesn’t look fiery, their batters are in absolute form to beat any opponents.

In their previous match against the defending champions, MI posted a massive score of 218 on the back of Suryakumar Yadav’s stunning century. In reply, Rashid Khan put up a fight but ended up losing as MI secured a 27-run victory at their home ground.

Rohit Sharma and Co have two matches left in this season and they need to win at least one of them to stay alive in the tournament. However, as the competition for the playoffs this time around is tough, the former champions do not want to take a risk by missing out on any opportunity. They will next face Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in an away match on May 16.