Mumbai Indians head into IPL 2026 carrying a star-studded squad Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Tilak Varma and a six-year title drought. Their last IPL trophy came in 2020. Since then, nothing.
Hardik was traded from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai ahead of the 2024 season and handed the captaincy, replacing Rohit Sharma. Fans were not happy. The team finished last on the points table that year. In 2025, they made it to the playoffs but fell in Qualifier 2 to Shreyas Iyer’s Punjab Kings.
Now, with IPL 2026 around the corner, former national selector Kris Srikkanth has a clear recommendation: give the captaincy to Suryakumar Yadav.
“They have to come together again the franchise owners and the team management with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, and Hardik Pandya and set this right again,” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel. “They should ask Surya to lead this year to see if there is a change of luck. They can always appoint Surya as the captain anytime. They don’t need to announce it right now.”The awkwardness of the situation isn’t lost on him either.
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“It’s a funny situation. Hardik Pandya is a good captain. But, yes, they have two T20 World Cup-winning captains playing under him now. It’s some internal policy within their setup that they have to sort out. From the outside, the obvious choice should be Suryakumar Yadav. But this might be a franchise policy,” he added. Srikkanth thinks the cleanest fix is if Hardik takes matters into his own hands.
“It’s a strange situation, as Hardik played under Rohit and Surya to help India win the World Cup. Otherwise, Hardik should himself say no to captaincy and allow Surya to lead. If Hardik himself says this to the management, things will get resolved. He should say, ‘Let Surya lead and I’ll support.’ That’s one way of solving it,” Srikkanth said.
Mumbai Indians open their IPL 2026 campaign on March 29, the second day of the tournament, against three-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
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