On February 16, the BCCI announced the schedule for the Indian Premier League 2025. The tournament is set to begin on March 22 with the opening match at Eden Gardens, the home ground of the defending champions, Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR will take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in this clash. Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings will kick off their campaigns on March 23 with a match at Chepauk.
Hardik Pandya Banned From CSK vs MI Clash
However, what many fans might not know is that Mumbai Indians’ captain, Hardik Pandya, will be unavailable for the CSK vs MI match due to a ban. This stems from an incident in IPL 2024, during Mumbai Indians’ final group-stage match against Lucknow Super Giants. In that game, Mumbai Indians were penalized for a slow over-rate, marking their third offense of the season.
According to IPL regulations, if a team maintains a slow over-rate in three matches within a season, the captain is handed a one-match suspension. Since this was Mumbai Indians’ last game of the 2024 season, the suspension carries over to their first match of IPL 2025. As a result, Hardik Pandya will be unavailable for Mumbai Indians’ season opener against Chennai Super Kings.
Suryakumar Yadav Likely To Lead Against CSK
In Hardik Pandya’s absence, it is expected that Suryakumar Yadav will lead Mumbai Indians against Chennai Super Kings. The Indian T20I skipper has previously captained Mumbai Indians in just one match during the 2023 season, against KKR, when Rohit Sharma was unavailable due to a stomach bug. Under Suryakumar’s leadership, Mumbai Indians had secured a victory in that game.
As for his international captaincy, Suryakumar has been performing admirably. The 34-year-old cricketer has led India in 22 T20Is, out of which the team has won 18 matches with an impressive win rate of 79.54%.
