New Delhi: Shortly before the start of the match, broadcasters announced that Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya will not feature in the match against Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Seconds after the announcement, Suryakumar Yadav, smiling, chewing gum and wearing a blue and gold jersey, walked out with team literature, shook hands with Ravi Shastri and then greeted Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel.
Later, the Delhi crowd burst into loud cheers when they saw Surya, the T20 World Cup-winning captain.
The big question is: why is Surya leading the team and why is Hardik missing such an important game?
The focus soon shifted to Suriya when Axar won the toss and chose to play against Mumbai Indians and talked about his team combination.
“(Hardik Pandya) is not in good shape, he is not looking good, so he is not fit for today’s game. So let’s start today,” Surya, Delhi Capitals’ stand-in captain for the match, said.
Mumbai Indians started their IPL 2026 season with a six-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders.
Mumbai Indians brought in Deepak Chahar to replace Pandya.
“(On the win against KKR) If you win the first game after 13-14 years, there will be a lot of positivity in the camp and we are very happy, but here it is completely different from the Wankhede. We have to take good responsibility and play a good game here. (On the surface) it looks good, the toss doesn’t matter. We wanted to bat first, they wanted to bowl first, but, yes, it’s nice to bat first. It looked good. We have done that and when we bat first and defend, Deepak Chahar Chahar replaced Corbin Bosch, which was a good tactical change, while Mitch Santner replaced Allah Ghazanfar.
Axar was playing against Mumbai Indians with the same team.
“I chose to bowl first. The first home game, I wanted to see how the wickets performed. It looked a little dry, a little hard. We chased the target well in the last game. Chasing the target from 26/4 in the powerplay gave the team a lot of confidence. Even the top players know that lower order batsmen can step up if they fail. Home games are always beneficial. Our DC supporters will be cheering us on. Same team,” Aksa said.
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team:
Delhi Capitals (Starting Lineup): KL Rahul (w), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (c), Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar
Mumbai Indians (Starting XI): Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickton (female), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (centre), Naman Dill, Sherfan Rutherford, Mitchell Santner, Corbin Bose, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah
Here are the substitutes for both teams:
Delhi Capitals shock substitutes: Ashutosh Sharma, Ochib Nabi Dar, Samir Rizvi, Dushmantha Chameera, Karun Nair
Mumbai Indians batting reserves: Mayank Markande, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar
