Mumbai
The bugle of the 18th season of the Indian Premier League has been played. The first match of IPL 2025 (IPL 2025) will be played between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). At the same time, the team of Mumbai Indians (Mumbai Indians) will play their first match against Chennai Super Kings on 23 March. Hardik Pandya will not play in this match.
Please tell that Hardik Pandya is banned for a match of IPL. For this reason, he will not be able to play the first match of IPL 2025. This is the reason that he will neither be the captain of Mumbai Indians nor a part of the playing XI in the match against Chennai Super Kings.
Actually, due to the slow over rate, Hardik Pandya is banned for a match. Hardik Pandya was the captain of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024. During this, the team was fined 3 times slow over rate. When a captain does this for the first time, then he is fined 12 lakhs. The fine is doubled in the second time. At the same time, when this happens, a match is banned. In IPL 2024, Rishabh Pant was also banned due to a slow over rate.
Why ban Hardik Pandya?
Hardik Pandya made a comeback to the Mumbai Indians team as captain last season. Under his captaincy, the team’s performance was very poor and Mumbai was in the last place. Not only this, under his captaincy, Mumbai Indians were fined a slow over rate against Lucknow Super Giants for the third time. According to the rules, the team captain is fined Rs 30 lakh at the slow over rate thrice, as well as ban for a match. Since Mumbai Indians were the mistake of slow over rate in the group stage and could not enter the play off. Due to this, Hardik Pandya could not be banned. In such a situation, he will have to be banned in IPL 2025 and will have to sit out in the initial match of Mumbai Indians against Chennai Super Kings.
Who will be the captain?
Due to the ban of a match on Hardik Pandya, the question has arisen that who will take over the command of the Mumbai Indians team in his place. Jasprit Bumrah is doubted on playing in early matches of the current season due to injury. In such a situation, Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma can be two big contenders as captains. Surya Kumar Yadav has a great record in T20 international cricket. Under his captaincy, Team India has suffered defeat in only 4 matches out of 18 matches. In this context, Surya Kumar Yadav can be seen as the command of Mumbai Indian. As of now, no information has been revealed from Mumbai Indians on this.
Suryakumar Yadav in place of Hardik, captain of Mumbai Indians
Now as Hardik Pandya is banned for a match. In such a situation, he will not be able to play against Chennai Super Kings on 23 March. If he is not there, Suryakumar Yadav can captain it. However, Mi has not officially announced this. At the same time, Robin Minj can get a chance in place of Hardik in the playing XI.
Mumbai Indians’ possible playing XI in the first match- Rohit Sharma, Will Jacks, Tilak Verma, Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Robin Minj, Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Karn Sharma, Trent Bolt and Corbin Bosch/Mujib ur Rahman.
