Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya will miss the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 match against the Delhi Capitals on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, and in his place, Suryakumar Yadav will lead the five-time champions. The decision was confirmed at the toss as the T20 World Cup-winning captain came out to the middle instead of the all-rounder. With Suryakumar leading the team, he certainly won’t play as an impact player in the fixture against Delhi. Earlier, the 35-year-old had played as an impact sub in the previous match against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Suryakumar confirmed that Hardik was not feeling well, and hence the call was taken to rest him. “He’s not well. Doesn’t look good; he wasn’t fit to play today. So just getting into his shoes today.”
Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and opted to bowl first. The hosts did not make any changes to their playing XI from the previous match. On the other hand, the Mumbai Indians made “quite a few changes” as Deepak Chahar replaced Hardik while Corbin Bosch came into the XI in the place of Trent Boult. Mitchell Santner also returned to the lineup in place of Allah Ghazanfar.
Suryakumar said that he doesn’t mind batting first, as he wanted to do so only in the afternoon game. “The toss was irrelevant. We wanted to bat first. They wanted to bowl first. Very happy to bat. Looks like a good pitch.”
“If you win the first game after 13 or 14 games, it brings a lot of positivity within the camp. We are very happy,” he added.
Here are the full lineups
Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul(w), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel(c), Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar.
Impact sub list: Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi Dar, Sameer Rizvi, Karun Nair.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton(w), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Naman Dhir, Sherfane Rutherford, Mitchell Santner, Corbin Bosch, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah.
Impact sub list: Mayank Markande, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar.
How did MI and DC perform in their opening match?
Mumbai Indians had started the IPL 2026 season on a high after winning their opening match against the Kolkata Knight Riders. This was the first time in 13 years that the five-time champions won their opening match of an IPL season.
On the other hand, the Delhi Capitals also won their opening match after beating the Lucknow Super Giants by six wickets in Lucknow. Sameer Rizvi and Tristan Stubbs put on a stand of more than 100 runs for the fifth wicket after the Capitals lost four wickets for less than 30 runs in the chase of 142.
