“[Bharucha] will work closely with the existing multi-disciplinary leadership group across all performance disciplines within the MI ecosystem,” a franchise statement said. “[He] will join the current support staff within MI’s highly integrated ecosystem and build on Mumbai Indians’ established approach to delivering sustained excellence in player development.”

Bharucha has already started in his role. Both he and Mhambrey are currently on a tour of South Africa with a group of young MI players.

Highly regarded in Mumbai circles for his cricket acumen, Bharucha joined RR in 2008 as their team director and remained in the position till he joined Daredevils as technical director for two seasons (2016 and 2017) before returning to Royals as their director of cricket, a post he held from 2018 to 2025.

MI, who are five-time winners of the IPL but have failed to make the playoffs in four of the last six seasons, finishing ninth and tenth on three of those occasions, have among their support staff Mahela Jayawardene (head coach), Kieron Pollard (batting coach) and Lasith Malinga (bowling coach).