As Hardik Pandya will miss Mumbai Indians' IPL 2025 opener, the five-time Champions need to start the season under a different captain. According to media reports, one of the most successful IPL captains, Rohit Sharma will lead Mumbai Indians in their season opener.

Mumbai Indians will start the IPL 2025 during the third game of the tournament when the hosts Chennai Super Kings will welcome them at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. On Sunday evening (March 23), this match will be played.

Mumbai Indians will start IPL 2025 without their captain Hardik Pandya

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya will miss Mumbai Indians' first game of the IPL 2025 due to suspension. Due to the slow over-rate offences three times in the IPL 2024, which occurred last time during Mumbai Indians' last league stage match in the IPL 2024 against Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, skipper Pandya has been handed one-match suspension. As that suspension couldn't happen in the IPL 2024 as Mumbai Indians didn't have any other game, the Mumbai Indians captain now has to face the one-match ban in their first match of the new IPL season. 

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Rohit Sharma will be Mumbai Indians' captain against Chennai Super Kings: Report

In the absence of regular captain Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma can take the leadership responsibility for Mumbai Indians in their IPL 2025 opener. Although there has been strong talk about Suryakumar Yadav's possible captaincy role for Mumbai Indians' IPL 2025 opener, as Yadav is the captain of the Indian T20I team, the recent report has a different claim. 

Under the leadership of Rohit Sharma, Mumbai Indians won five IPL trophies as they became the first team to achieve this feat. Before the beginning of the IPL 2024, Hardik Pandya left the Gujarat Titans, who led the new IPL team to reach the Finals in their first two seasons (2022 and 2023) and won the debut IPL season (2022), and the defending champions finished runners-up in the 2023 season, and joined Mumbai Indians. The franchise soon replaced Pandya with Rohit Sharma for the leadership role for the IPL 2025, where they finished in the 10th or last place.