IPL 2025: If not Hardik … Who will be the captain of Mumbai Indians? See list

The entire schedule of IPL season 18 has been announced. The new season will start from 22 March. The first match will be played between defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, Mumbai Indians will start their campaign from 23 March. Mumbai's first match will be with Chennai Super Kings. Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya will not be able to play in the match. The big question is, who will lead Mumbai Indians in the first match? The names of three players are coming in this regard.

Who will be the captain of MI in the first match?

In the last season, Mumbai Indians made Hardik Pandya the new captain of the team. The performance of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024 was very poor under Hardik's captaincy. The team could not even reach the playoffs. At the same time, Hardik Pandya has been banned from playing the first match of IPL 2025. After that, the names of three players are coming, against which Mumbai Indians can lead in the first match. These include Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Verma.

Rohit Sharma has been leading Mumbai Indians for a long time. Under Rohit Sharma's captaincy, Mumbai Indians have won five IPL titles. Rohit Sharma is currently the captain of Test Team India and ODI Team India. However, Rohit will retire from international cricket after the 2024 T20 World Cup. Apart from Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav or Tilak Verma can lead Mumbai in the first match. Suryakumar Yadav is also the captain of the T20 team in India, in which the Indian team has won the T20 series under its captaincy. Recently, Team India defeated England 4–1 in the five-match T20 series.

Why was a match banned from Hardik?

In IPL 2024, Mumbai Indians played their last league match against Lucknow Super Veterans. In this match, due to a slow rate, Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was fined Rs 30 lakh and was banned for the first match of IPL 2025.