IPL 2025: Hardik Pandya confirms Mumbai Indians stand-in captain in his absence

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 is just around the corner and both the five-time champions, Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSk), are set to cross swords on Sunday, March 23. Meanwhile, MI are looking for a stand-in captain, as regular skipper Hardik Pandya has been banned from participating in the first two matches of the upcoming tournament.

In the latest development, Pandya himself has finally revealed the interim skipper to don the hat in his absence for the season opener against CSK. Experienced batter and India captain Suryakumar Yadav is set to take over as the leadership responsibility for the upcoming encounter for the franchise.

"Surya will be the ideal choice when I am not there," Hardik said during the pre-season press conference on Wednesday, March 19.

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Hardik Pandya on our captain for #CSKvMI: "Suryakumar Yadav leads India as well. He will lead Mumbai Indians in the first match of TATA IPL 2025"

12:16 PM · Mar 19, 2025

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Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah were also two names that were potentially the options as captains in Hardik's unavailability, however, the Men in Blue T20I skipper is now set to take over the duties, as confirmed by the mainstay skipper himself.

"SKY has scored a lot of runs over the years. For me, he is batting brilliantly. He has been a proven match-winner for India and Mumbai Indians," Hardik said further on his deputy.

Speaking of Suryakumar's captaincy record, he has led the team in 39 matches in T20s, three of which came for Mumbai Indians when Rohit was injured in 2023. He has won 28 T20 matches as captain, while losing 10 games. His batting records as captain is also impressive, as he has a century, eight half-centuries with 1068 runs in 37 matches at a strike-rate of 164.56.

Now, the game against Chennai will be his 40th match as captain, and the Mumbai batter would look to start off the proceedings for MI on a positive note. The game will be played on Sunday, March 23 at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Their next game will be against Gujarat Titans on March 29, where Hardik is set to return as the leader for the rest of the tournament.

Mumbai Indians Squad for IPL 2025

Hardik Pandya (captain), Suryakumar Yadav (vice-captain), Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, Arjun Tendulkar, Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Ryan Rickelton (wicketkeeper), Robin Minz (wicketkeeper), Bevon Jacobs, Krishnan Shrijith, Raj Bawa, Corbin Bosch, Mitchell Santner, Will Jacks, Ashwani Kumar, Trent Boult, Deepak Chahar, Vignesh Puthur, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karn Sharma, Reece Topley, Satyanarayana Raju