Jasprit Bumrah will captain Mumbai Indians for the first time in his IPL career when the side takes on Punjab Kings in Dharamsala on Thursday. The pacer steps in as skipper with Hardik Pandya ruled out because of a back spasm, while Suryakumar Yadav—who had led MI in each of the previous two matches—has also been left out for personal reasons.
With their campaign already over in terms of the play-offs race, Mumbai Indians have made two alterations to the XI from their last outing. Suryakumar Yadav, who had captained the team in the previous game, is missing this fixture “due to personal reasons”, and AM Ghazanfar is the other MI player who will not feature.
Speaking ahead of the match, Bumrah said, “I did not expect to be a Test captain before becoming an IPL captain,” highlighting the unusual path that has led him to the captaincy role in the shortest format.
Punjab Kings, meanwhile, have reshuffled their squad with Azmatullah Omarzai and Xavier Bartlett coming into the playing group. Marcus Stoinis and Ben Dwarshuis are the two players who have missed out for this encounter.
Teams
Mumbai Indians: Jasprit Bumrah (c), Ryan Rickelton (wk), Naman Dhir, Sherfane Rutherford, Tilak Varma, Will Jacks, Raj Bawa, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Raghu Sharma.
Punjab Kings: Shreyas Iyer (c), Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Priyansh Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Azmatullah Omarzai, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.
