IPL 2025: Why Captain Hardik Pandya will miss MI's opening match vs CSK at the Chepauk, EXPLAINED

The official schedule of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League, IPL 2025 has been revealed and reigning champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will be seen squaring off versus Rajat Patidar-led Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the opening match of the upcoming season at Kolkata's Eden Gardens Stadium on the 22nd of March. 

Not only this, the first game between the two biggest rivals in the history of the tournament, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) & Mumbai Indians (MI) will also be played in the first week of the IPL as the two rivals will be taking on each other at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai on the 23rd of March. But, ahead of this exciting encounter, there's some bad news for the MI Fans. Skipper Hardik Pandya won't get the chance to feature in the EL Clasico in Chennai

Why will Hardik Pandya miss the match versus CSK in Chepauk? 

The 31-year-old Hardik will miss the contest versus Chennai in Chepauk because he has been banned for one match. Therefore, the Mumbai-based team will have to take on the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led team without the services of their skipper in the team's opening encounter of IPL 2025. 

Now the question which arises here is, why has Hardik been handed a one-match ban? The previous edition of the cash-rich T20 league was a horrible one for the 31-year-old both as a captain & as a player for the Mumbai Indians. In the team's final match of the previous season versus LSG, the over rate of the Hardik Pandya-led MI was very low.

Why was Hardik Pandya banned?

Last season, Hardik was found guilty of having a slow over-rate with MI thrice. His team failed to bowl all the overs on time on three occasions. In accordance to the rules of the IPL, if any team is found guilty of having a slow over-rate thrice in a season, then their captain will be suspended for one match and that's why, the 31-year-old was banned for one match after repeating the same mistake for the third time in a match last season. 

But Mumbai was eliminated from the tournament by the time he got punished, so he did not get the chance to serve this punishment. Now his team's first match in IPL 2025 is against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and he will have to serve his ban in this game. So he will not be able to play this match.

Junior Pandya had a horrific outing with the Mumbai Indians (MI) in IPL 2024. Under his leadership, the five time winners suffered defeats in 10 games out of 14 in the group stage phase and to make matters even more worse, they finished at the bottom of the table with just four wins to their name. 

At the same time, after Rohit Sharma was stripped off the captaincy role, Hardik also had to face the wrath of the fans. Not only this, he wasn't given the chance to breathe a sigh of relief even in the final game of the season as the boos took over the entire Wankhede Stadium. With the 31-year-old suspended for the opening game versus CSK, the MI team management will now have to look for alternate captaincy options.