IPL 2026: Suryakumar Leads MI In Hardik’s Absence As Unchanged DC Elect To Bowl First

IPL 2026: Suryakumar leads MI in Hardik’s absence as unchanged DC elect to bowl first (Image Source: IANS)

Arun Jaitley Stadium: Suryakumar Yadav will be leading Mumbai Indians in the absence of Hardik Pandya as an unchanged Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bowl first in the first double header clash of IPL 2026 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday.

Both teams are playing their first afternoon clash of the season after winning their respective first games. Hardik wasn’t spotted at MI’s practice sessions for the last two days in the national capital.

MI have said in a statement that, "Hardik Pandya is unwell and hence will not be taking the field today. Suryakumar Yadav will be the captain today." Suryakumar is coming off after leading India to 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup win.

Suryakumar also said Deepak Chahar, Corbin Bosch and Mitchell Santner have come into the playing eleven in place of Pandya, Trent Boult and AM Ghazanfar. “I'm getting into his shoes today. If you win the first game after 13-14 years, there's a lot of confidence. Toss was irrelevant. We wanted to bat first,” he said.

DC skipper Axar Patel said they have retained their playing eleven. First match at home, I want to see how the wicket is behaving. It looks a bit dry, a bit hard. We chased well in the last match.

“To chase down the target from 26/ 4 in the powerplay, it gives a lot of confidence to the group. Even the top-order know that there are batters in the lower order who can step up if they fail. Playing a home game is always beneficial. Our DC supporters will cheer for us,” he said.

Playing XIs:

Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (captain), Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, and Mukesh Kumar

Impact Substitutes: Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi, Sameer Rizvi, Dushmantha Chameera, and Karun Nair

Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel (captain), Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, and Mukesh Kumar

Impact Substitutes: Mayank Markande, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Trent Boult, and Ashwani Kumar

Article Source: IANS