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Mumbai Indians will face Chennai Super Kings in its first match of the IPL 2025 season at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday, March 23.
Hardik Pandya will miss MI’s IPL 2025 opener against CSK on March 23. (Picture Credit: PTI)
Five-time champions Mumbai Indians will face archrivals Chennai Super Kings in their first match of the IPL 2025. The high-voltage match between the two most successful teams in cash-rich league history is scheduled to take place at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on March 23. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) released the full schedule of IPL 2025 on Sunday, February 16, and in the upcoming 18th season of the world’s richest franchise cricket league, MI and CSK will face each other twice.
However, star Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who was retained as Mumbai Indians captain for IPL 2025 on October 31 last year by the franchise owners, will not play in the MI-CSK match at Chepauk on March 23. The 31-year-old cricketer, who made his IPL captaincy debut for MI last season, was suspended for one match after MI’s last group stage match of IPL 2024 against Lucknow Super Giants. He was also fined Rs 30 lakh for maintaining a slow over rate.
“As it was his team’s third offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences, Pandya was fined INR 30 lakhs and banned from playing the team’s next match. The rest of the members of the Playing XI, including the Impact Player, were each individually fined either INR 12 lakhs or 50 percent of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser,” BCCI had said in the 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.