The Mumbai Indians, five-time champions, will lock horns with archrival Chennai Super Kings in their opening encounter of IPL 2025. Their face-off, replete with all the razzmatazz and high-octane drama, is slated to take place on March 23 at MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai-the showpiece stadium of the greatest rivalry in IPL history between the two most successful teams of the profusely rich league. The complete IPL 2025 schedule was released by the BCCI on Sunday, 16 February, and in this season 18 of the richest franchise cricket league in the world, the MI and the CSK will tussle it out against each other twice.
But, the Indian superstar all-rounder Hardik Pandya, retained by the franchise owners to lead the Mumbai Indians for IPL 2025 last year on October 31, will not feature for the MI-CSK match at Chepauk on March 23. The 31-year-old cricketer, who made his captaincy debut last season for MI in the IPL, received a one-match suspension after the completion of MI’s last group stage match against the Lucknow Super Giants. He was also fined Rs 30 lakh for maintaining a slow over-rate.
“If it happens to be his team’s third offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct regarding minimum over-rate offences, Pandya was fined INR 30 lakhs and banned from playing their next match. Other members of the Playing XI, including the Impact Player, were each fined either INR 12 lakhs or 50 percent of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser,” BCCI had said in a release last year.
In Hardik’s absence, Rohit Sharma or Suryakumar Yadav could lead MI in the first match of the new season. Surya, who’s India’s T20I captain, made his captaincy debut for MI on April 16, 2023, during the match played against Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, whereas Rohit has led the franchise in a total of 158 matches from the mid of the 2013 season to the end of the 2023 season.
Under Rohit’s leadership, MI has won five IPL titles in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020. MI defeated CSK three times in the IPL final and enjoys a 20-17 win record against Chennai Super Kings, which has also won the IPL title five times so far.
