Abhinav Mukund, an upcoming talent in Indian cricket, was born on January 6, 1990, in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu. He is a left-handed batsman and a leg spin bowler. He secured around 90% in Class X and 85% in Class XII and went on to pursue his bachelor’s degree in Commerce at Vivekananda College in Chennai. Abhinav Mukund hails from a cricketing family. His father T.S. Mukund was a First Division cricketer in the 1980s and his mother, Lakshmi, is also a cricketer who played for South Zone University. One of his uncles, T.S. Mohan, played for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) team who later became a specialist fielding coach, while another, T.S. Manohar, plays for the Indian Airlines team.
Abhinav Mukund honed his cricket skills at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), under the guidance of Bhaskar Pillai and Parthasarathy Sharma. He was soon part of the Under-19 team and scored a double century and a hundred against Sri Lanka July 2007. He was also a member of the India Under-19 World Cup team that played in Malaysia in February-March 2008.
Abhinav Mukund began making a mark for himself with the Tamil Nadu Under-13 team, scoring two centuries in a row in October 2002. After his stint with the NCA he was picked for the Under-17 team and went on to score an unbeaten 163 for Tamil Nadu against Kerala in the South Zone Under-17 cricket tournament on November 13, 2005. Abhinav Mukund smashed seventeen boundaries in his century, which helped his side to make a total of 313 for six wickets in 100 overs in the first innings.
Owing to his outstanding performances, he got the opportunity to play for the Tamil Nadu team in the Buchi Babu tournament in August 2007 and made 92 against Assam. His First-class debut for the Tamil Nadu team came on September 26, 2007 against Sri Lanka Cricket Invitational XI at Colombo.
In November 2007, he scored a century on his Ranji Trophy debut and helped the Tamil Nadu team to a total of 289 runs in the first innings on the first day of the Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka in Chennai. In the process he became the seventh Tamil Nadu player to score a century on debut in Ranji trophy. As of the year 2008, Abhinav Mukund played six First-class cricket matches and scored 434 runs, with an average of 43.40 and has a highest score of 120 runs.
In the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 (T20) 2008 season, Abhinav Mukund was the youngest player to represent the Chennai Super Kings team. On May 24, 2008, he began his T20 career against Rajasthan Royals at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. He also played against the Deccan Chargers team at Hyderabad on May 27, 2008.
